A recent journal article Neuron presents the discovery of a two-way direction neural network Connects the foot and the visual system to shape walking.
The researchers found that the optic neurons of fruit flies relay a stream of neural activity even in complete darkness. It turned out that the neurons were tracking the animal’s steps.
The researchers used whole-cell patch recording to monitor the electrical charge of neurons. The electrical charge of the neuron is synchronized with the animal’s gait in an optimal way to regulate each movement. When the leg is elevated, neurons send corrections to the motor area if needed. When the foot is on the ground, neurons are inhibited.
The neural network works in fast time cycles to track and correct each step, and to drive the animal’s behavioral goals. For example, when the fly is going fast, the neuronal charge becomes more and more active to help maintain the plan of action.
Flexible mapping between sensory system activity and motor parameters is a hallmark of motor control. This flexibility depends on a constant comparison between short-term postural dynamics and long-term goals of the animals, thus requiring neural mechanisms that can operate across multiple time ranges.
To understand how such body-brain interactions emerge at intervals to control movement, we performed whole-cell patch recording from participating optic neurons. into the course control process in Drosophila.
We show that the activity of leg muscle inducers, propagating through specific ascending neurons, is important for stepwise steering regulation controlled by the visual circuit and, in At longer intervals, it provides information about the state of the moving body to flexibly adjust the imaging circuit to course control.
Our findings thus demonstrate the presence of an elegant stride-based mechanism operating at multiple time ranges for context-dependent course control.
We propose that this mechanism acts as a common basis for adaptive control of locomotion.
Source link: https://www.fchampalimaud.org/news/newly-discovered-neural-network-gets-visual-and-motor-circuits-sync
