Central pattern generator
- Respiratory gas levels interact to control ventilatory motor patterns in isolated locust ganglia
Summary: Tight control over respiratory gas supply to the isolated locust CNS reveals interactions of oxygen and carbon dioxide effects on central ventilatory output.
- In vivo effects of temperature on the heart and pyloric rhythms in the crab Cancer borealis
Summary: Temperature elevation increases the frequency of the heart and pyloric rhythms of the crab Cancer borealis, but the heart rhythm has a higher critical temperature than the pyloric rhythm.
- The stomatogastric nervous system of the medicinal leech: its anatomy, physiology and associated aminergic neurons
Summary: Blood feeding is a signature activity of the medicinal leech. The presence and characteristics of the stomatogastric nervous system, vital for feeding, are reported here for the first time.
- Intricate but tight coupling of spiracular activity and abdominal ventilation during locust discontinuous gas exchange cycles
Editors' Choice: Direct monitoring of ventilation/spiracle muscle activity, simultaneously with respirometry, reveals two different ventilation motor patterns that could explain the mechanistic basis of discontinuous gas exchange cycles in locusts.
- Muscles innervated by a single motor neuron exhibit divergent synaptic properties on multiple time scales
Summary: Distinct properties of synapses between the same motor neuron and multiple target muscles result in divergent responses to bursting activity across a physiological activity range.
- Evolution of vocal patterns: tuning hindbrain circuits during species divergence
Summary: Courtship song dynamics arise from finely tuned motor circuits. Alterations in the activity of a key nucleus of the hindbrain vocal circuit accompany call pattern divergence during speciation in African clawed frogs.
- Developmental changes in head movement kinematics during swimming in Xenopus laevis tadpoles
Summary: Xenopus laevis tadpoles decrease their swimming frequency during development without changing head movement amplitude, with consequences for vestibular self-stimulation.
- Adaptive plasticity of spino-extraocular motor coupling during locomotion in metamorphosing Xenopus laevis
Highlighted Article: Adaptive neural plasticity of spinal locomotor-extraocular motor circuit coupling enables Xenopus frogs to continuously generate effective retinal image-stabilizing eye movements throughout the metamorphic transition from fish-like tadpole to quadrupedal adult.
- Sources and range of long-term variability of rhythmic motor patterns in vivo
Summary: Light-driven activity patterns exist in vivo for pyloric and gastric mill rhythms, but are overshadowed by substantial variability and occluded by sensory influences, which alter motor pattern structure.
- Distinct or shared actions of peptide family isoforms: I. Peptide-specific actions of pyrokinins in the lobster cardiac neuromuscular system
Summary: Pyrokinins are located throughout the lobster cardiac ganglion, but only one crustacean pyrokinin modulates cardiac activity, suggesting high isoform specificity of the pyrokinin receptor(s) in this tissue.