Modular deconstruction reveals the dynamical and physical building blocks of a locomotion motor program

Bruno, Angela M., Frost, William N. and Humphries, Mark D. (2015) Modular deconstruction reveals the dynamical and physical building blocks of a locomotion motor program. Neuron, 86 (1). pp. 304-318. ISSN 0896-6273

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Abstract

The neural substrates of motor programs are only well understood for small, dedicated circuits. Here we investigate how a motor program is constructed within a large network. We imaged populations of neurons in the Aplysia pedal ganglion during execution of a locomotion motor program. We found that the program was built from a very small number of dynamical building blocks, including both neural ensembles and low-dimensional rotational dynamics. These map onto physically discrete regions of the ganglion, so that the motor program has a corresponding modular organization in both dynamical and physical space. Using this dynamic map, we identify the population potentially implementing the rhythmic pattern generator and find that its activity physically traces a looped trajectory, recapitulating its low-dimensional rotational dynamics. Our results suggest that, even in simple invertebrates, neural motor programs are implemented by large, distributed networks containing multiple dynamical systems.

Item Type: Article
Schools/Departments: University of Nottingham, UK > Faculty of Science > School of Psychology
Identification Number: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2015.03.005
Depositing User: Lashkova, Mrs Olga
Date Deposited: 31 Aug 2018 10:03
Last Modified: 31 Aug 2018 10:10
URI: https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/53578

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