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Sci. STKE, 23 January 2007
Vol. 2007, Issue 370, p. tw32
[DOI: 10.1126/stke.3702007tw32]

EDITORS' CHOICE

Neuroscience Dance, Turtle, Dance

Peter Stern

Science, AAAS, Washington, DC 20005, USA

The basic spinal network mechanisms underlying limb movements are still not fully understood. Investigating spinal cord preparations from adult turtles, Berg et al. describe how spinal networks operate during motor pattern generation. Balanced increases in synaptic excitation and inhibition operate in spinal motor neurons to produce rhythmic bursts of action potentials that are stochastic in nature. This activity contrasts strongly with the classical notion that antiphasic inhibition and excitation produces rhythmic activity in oscillatory spinal networks (see Kristan for commentary).

R. W. Berg, A. Alaburda, J. Hounsgaard, Balanced inhibition and excitation drive spike activity in spinal half-centers. Science 315, 390-393 (2007). [Abstract] [Full Text]

W. B. Kristan, A push-me pull-you neural design. Science 315, 339-340 (2007). [Summary] [Full Text]

Citation: P. Stern, Dance, Turtle, Dance. Sci. STKE 2007, tw32 (2007).

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