The Activity of Spinal Commissural Interneurons During Fictive Locomotion in the Lamprey (original) (raw)
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Activity of Reticulospinal Neurons During Locomotion in the Freely Behaving Lamprey
Journal of Neurophysiology, 2000
The reticulospinal (RS) system is the main descending system transmitting commands from the brain to the spinal cord in the lamprey. It is responsible for initiation of locomotion, steering, and equilibrium control. In the present study, we characterize the commands that are sent by the brain to the spinal cord in intact animals via the reticulospinal pathways during locomotion. We have developed a method for recording the activity of larger RS axons in the spinal cord in freely behaving lampreys by means of chronically implanted macroelectrodes. In this paper, the mass activity in the right and left RS pathways is described and the correlations of this activity with different aspects of locomotion are discussed. In quiescent animals, the RS neurons had a low level of activity. A mild activation of RS neurons occurred in response to different sensory stimuli. Unilateral eye illumination evoked activation of the ipsilateral RS neurons. Unilateral illumination of the tail dermal photo...
Fast and Slow Locomotor Burst Generation in the Hemispinal Cord of the Lamprey
Journal of Neurophysiology, 2003
A fundamental question in vertebrate locomotion is whether distinct spinal networks exist that are capable of generating rhythmic output for each group of muscle synergists. In many vertebrates including the lamprey, it has been claimed that burst activity depends on reciprocal inhibition between antagonists. This question was addressed in the isolated lamprey spinal cord in which the left and right sides of each myotome display rhythmic alternating activity. We sectioned the spinal cord along the midline and tested whether rhythmic motor activity could be induced in the hemicord with bath-applied d-glutamate or N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) as in the intact spinal cord or by brief trains of electrical stimuli. Fast rhythmic bursting (2–12 Hz), coordinated across ventral roots, was observed with all three methods. Furthermore, to diminish gradually the crossed glycinergic inhibition, a progressive surgical lesioning of axons crossing the midline was implemented. This resulted in a gra...
Brain Research, 1989
Lamprey reticulospinal neurons are rhythmically modulated during fictive swimming. The present study examines the possibility that this modulation may originate from the spinal cord locomotor networks rather than from the brainstem. To test this, the in vitro preparation of the lamprey brainstem-spinal cord was separated into two compartments which could be exposed to different chemical environments. Locomotor activity was induced pharmacologically in the caudal spinal cord compartment and reticulospinal (RS) neurons from the posterior rhombencephalic reticular nucleus (PRRN) were recorded intracellularly in the rostral compartment containing normal lamprey Ringer. Under these conditions, the membrane potential of RS neurons showed clear rhythmic oscillations which are correlated with the ongoing locomotor activity in the caudal spinal cord bath, although no locomotor discharges were present in the ventral roots of the rostral bath. Such oscillations were not present in the absence of locomotion. These results indicate that the spinal cord locomotor networks can contribute to the rhythmic oscillations which occur in RS neurons during fictive locomotion. Moreover, the latter oscillations of membrane potential are due to both phasic excitation and Cl- -dependent inhibition in the opposite phase.
The Journal of Neuroscience, 2008
Locomotion relies on a precisely timed activation of sets of motoneurons. A fundamental question is how this is achieved. In the lamprey, fin and myotomal motoneurons located on the same side of the spinal cord display alternating activity during straight swimming. The neural mechanism underlying this alternation is studied here during fictive locomotion induced by superfusion with NMDA, or locomotor bursting induced by electrical stimulation. If the spinal cord is split longitudinally, each hemicord still displays rhythmic locomotor related burst activity, but now fin and myotomal motoneurons become active in-phase. The out-of-phase activation of fin motoneurons persists only when at least three segments are left intact in the rostral part of the spinal cord. Proper coordination of fin motoneurons thus requires input from contralateral rostral segments. We show that commissural excitatory interneurons with long descending axons, previously reported to be active in phase with their ...
Journal of Neurophysiology, 1999
These experiments were designed to measure the degree of shared synaptic inputs coming to pairs of myotomal motoneurons during swimming activity in the isolated spinal cord of the lamprey. In addition, the experiments measured the decrease in the degree of shared synaptic inputs with the distance between the motoneurons to assess the segmental distribution of these shared inputs. Intracellular microelectrode recordings of membrane potential were made simultaneously on pairs of myotomal motoneurons during swimming activity induced with an excitatory amino acid. The swim cycle oscillations of motoneuron membrane potentials were removed with a digital notch filter, thus leaving the fast synaptic activities that underlie these slower oscillations. Cross-correlations of the fast synaptic activities in two simultaneously recorded motoneurons were made to measure the degree of shared inputs. The cross-correlation was done on time windows restricted to one swim cycle or to part of a swim cy...
Brain research, 1989
The intracellular activity of different types of reticulospinal neurones was studied during fictive locomotion and other types of spinal motor activity in an in vitro preparation of the lamprey brainstem-spinal cord. The examined neurones included large Miiller cells of the rhombencephalic and mesencephalic reticular formation, the Mauthner cell, and neurones in the posterior rhombencephalic reticular nucleus with different sizes and conduction velocities. During bouts of fictive swimming initiated spontaneously or by stimulation of the trigeminal nerve or spinal cord, the Miiller cells were depolarized and fired action potentials. Bulbar MUller cells in addition showed a phasic modulation of membrane potential with excitation in phase with ipsilateral motoneurones of the rostral spinal cord. The Mauthner cell was depolarized in phase with contralateral motoneurones. Many neurones in the posterior rhombencephalic reticular nucleus showed modulation in phase with ipsilateral motoneurones during fictive swimming. Such oscillations were observed in both fast-conducting neurones, located mainly in the medial part of the nucleus, and slower conducting cells with a more lateral distribution. All examined reticulospinal neurones showed a strong coupling also with other types of spinal motor activity, such as slow alternating bursting and synchronous bilateral ventral root bursts, but the reticulospinal activity had no correlation with respiratory activity recorded from the Xth nerve. The consequences of a phasic reticulospinal activity during locomotion are discussed.
Ion channels of importance for the locomotor pattern generation in the lamprey brainstem-spinal cord
The Journal of Physiology, 2001
The intrinsic function of the spinal network that generates locomotion can be studied in the isolated brainstem-spinal cord of the lamprey, a lower vertebrate. The motor pattern underlying locomotion can be elicited in the isolated spinal cord. The network consists of excitatory glutamatergic and inhibitory glycinergic interneurones with known connectivity. The current review addresses the different subtypes of ion channels that are present in the cell types that constitute the network. In particular the roles of the different subtypes of Ca2+ channels and potassium channels that regulate integrated neuronal functions, like frequency regulation, spike frequency adaptation and properties that are important for generating features of the motor pattern (e.g. burst termination), are reviewed. By knowing the role of an ion channel at the cellular level, we also, based on previous knowledge of network connectivity, can understand which effect a given ion channel may exert at the different levels from molecule and cell to network and behaviour.
Reticulospinal neurons controlling forward and backward swimming in the lamprey
Journal of Neurophysiology, 2011
Most vertebrates are capable of two forms of locomotion, forward and backward, strongly differing in the patterns of motor coordination. Basic mechanisms generating these patterns are located in the spinal cord; they are activated and regulated by supraspinal commands. In the lamprey, these commands are transmitted by reticulospinal (RS) neurons. The aim of this study was to reveal groups of RS neurons controlling different aspects of forward (FS) and backward (BS) swimming in the lamprey. Activity of individual larger RS neurons in intact lampreys was recorded during FS and BS by chronically implanted electrodes. It was found that among the neurons activated during locomotion, 27% were active only during FS, 3% only during BS, and 70% during both FS and BS. In a portion of RS neurons, their mean firing frequency was correlated with frequency of body undulations during FS (8%), during BS (34%), or during both FS and BS (22%), suggesting their involvement in control of locomotion int...