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Coordinated spinal locomotor network dynamics emerge from cell-type-specific connectivity patterns

Coordinated spinal locomotor network dynamics emerge from cell-type-specific connectivity patterns

Start: 
Monday, February 10, 2025 11:00 am
End: 
Monday, February 10, 2025 11:50 am
Location: 
STAG 213
James Murray
University of Oregon

Even without detailed instruction from the brain, the neural circuitry within the spinal cord generates coordinated behavior characterized by left-right alternation, head-to-tail propagation, and variable-speed control. While classical models have emphasized the role of cellular properties for generating locomotion, they have not fully accounted for recent experimental results in zebrafish and other organisms pointing to the importance of long-range, cell-type-specific connectivity patterns. Informed by these experimental findings and others, we developed a hierarchy of increasingly detailed models of the locomotor circuit. We model the circuit as a high-dimensional, nonlinear dynamical system defined on a directed graph, in which the dynamics of individual nodes are highly simplified, and the emergent collective behavior arises from the graph structure rather than from properties of individual nodes. Analysis of these models yields insights about the functional roles played by different types of neurons and their characteristic connectivity patterns with one another.

Contact: 
Philipp Kunde