UMMS Affiliation
Department of Neurobiology; Alkema Lab; Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Neuroscience Program
Publication Date
2018-01-23
Document Type
Article
Disciplines
Neuroscience and Neurobiology
Abstract
Cell- or network-driven oscillators underlie motor rhythmicity. The identity of C. elegans oscillators remains unknown. Through cell ablation, electrophysiology, and calcium imaging, we show: (1) forward and backward locomotion is driven by different oscillators; (2) the cholinergic and excitatory A-class motor neurons exhibit intrinsic and oscillatory activity that is sufficient to drive backward locomotion in the absence of premotor interneurons; (3) the UNC-2 P/Q/N high-voltage-activated calcium current underlies A motor neuron's oscillation; (4) descending premotor interneurons AVA, via an evolutionarily conserved, mixed gap junction and chemical synapse configuration, exert state-dependent inhibition and potentiation of A motor neuron's intrinsic activity to regulate backward locomotion. Thus, motor neurons themselves derive rhythms, which are dually regulated by the descending interneurons to control the reversal motor state. These and previous findings exemplify compression: essential circuit properties are conserved but executed by fewer numbers and layers of neurons in a small locomotor network.
Keywords
C. elegans, Central Pattern Generator (CPG), locomotion, motor neuron, neuroscience, oscillation, rhythm
Rights and Permissions
Copyright Gao et al. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License, which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
DOI of Published Version
10.7554/eLife.29915
Source
Elife. 2018 Jan 23;7. pii: 29915. doi: 10.7554/eLife.29915. Link to article on publisher's site
Journal/Book/Conference Title
eLife
Related Resources
PubMed ID
29360035
Repository Citation
Gao S, Guan SA, Fouad AD, Meng J, Kawano T, Huang Y, Li Y, Alcaire S, Hung W, Lu Y, Qi YB, Jin Y, Alkema MJ, Fang-Yen C, Zhen M. (2018). Excitatory motor neurons are local oscillators for backward locomotion. Open Access Articles. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.29915. Retrieved from https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/oapubs/3364
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.