Nat commun: scientists have found new neural signals in the spine that regulate muscle movement

September 21, 2019 / BIOON / -- in a recent study, researchers at the University of Copenhagen have a new understanding of the way in which exercise is produced and maintained by studying the network between nerve and muscle cells of turtles In the long run, this breakthrough may benefit the treatment of ALS and spinal cord injury (image source: www Pixabay Com) Rune W Berg, an associate professor of neuroscience from Copenhagen University, and others have studied the network between nerve and muscle cells, providing new insights on the way of motion generation and maintenance The results were published recently in nature communications In this study, the team used electrodes to explore the spinal reflex characteristics of tortoises when they scratched with their hind legs This reflex is also present in dogs, cats and many other mammals So far, it is generally believed that the activation of muscle neurons originates from a command center, which sends signals to many cells at once Since it is difficult to find the origin of movement, it has long been considered as the core of determining the pace, just like some metronome But our data shows that it could actually be a huge network " Henrik Lind é n, an assistant professor involved in the study, said To test whether walking determines whether a small central core or a large network, the researchers compared the turtle's relatively quiet rhythms during exercise with the rapid nerve impulses in the spine To the team's surprise, the measurements showed no correlation Therefore, there is no evidence that neural signals from multiple cells come from the same source Instead, researchers now believe that neural signals come from a major, decentralized network of cells, each sending signals to only a few other cells The team then copied the results into a computer model of a simulated simple nervous system With these results, researchers have taken a step further in understanding exactly where and how motion actually occurs ``If we don't know enough about the Internet and how it works, then we can't figure out how to treat it On the contrary, once we understand the principles behind network distribution and which cell types are important, we can better put the treatment of nervous system diseases on the right track, "said Rune W Berg Information sources: neurologic signals from the internal core survey scientists original sources: Marija radosevic, Alex willumsen, Peter C Petersen, Henrik Lind é n, mikkel Vestergaard, run W Berg Decimating of timescales reeveals sparse convert CpG network in the Advisory internal core Nature communications, 2019; 10 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-10822-9