Cargando…

Hindlimb muscle spindles inform preparatory forelimb coordination prior to landing in toads

Animals move across a wide range of surface conditions in real-world environments to acquire resources and avoid predation. To effectively navigate a variety of surfaces, animals rely on several mechanisms including intrinsic mechanical responses, spinal-level central pattern generators, and neural...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Duman, Alex, Azizi, Emanuel
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Company of Biologists Ltd 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10086541/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36576050
http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/jeb.244629
_version_ 1785022175943589888
author Duman, Alex
Azizi, Emanuel
author_facet Duman, Alex
Azizi, Emanuel
author_sort Duman, Alex
collection PubMed
description Animals move across a wide range of surface conditions in real-world environments to acquire resources and avoid predation. To effectively navigate a variety of surfaces, animals rely on several mechanisms including intrinsic mechanical responses, spinal-level central pattern generators, and neural commands that require sensory feedback. Muscle spindle Ia afferents play a critical role in providing sensory feedback and informing motor control strategies across legged vertebrate locomotion, which is apparent in cases where this sensory input is compromised. Here, we tested the hypothesis that spindle Ia afferents from hindlimb muscles are important for coordinating forelimb landing behavior in the cane toad. We performed bilateral sciatic nerve reinnervations to ablate the stretch reflex from distal hindlimb muscles while allowing for motor neuron recovery. We found that toads significantly delayed the onset and reduced the activation duration of their elbow extensor muscle following spindle Ia afferent ablation in the hindlimbs. However, reinnervated toads achieved similar elbow extension at touchdown to that of their pre-surgery state. Our results suggest that while toads likely tuned the activation timing of forelimb muscles in response to losing Ia afferent sensation from the hindlimbs they were likely able to employ compensatory strategies that allowed them to continue landing effectively with reduced sensory information during take-off. These findings indicate muscle spindle Ia afferents may contribute to tuning complex movements involving multiple limbs.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-10086541
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2023
publisher The Company of Biologists Ltd
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-100865412023-04-12 Hindlimb muscle spindles inform preparatory forelimb coordination prior to landing in toads Duman, Alex Azizi, Emanuel J Exp Biol Research Article Animals move across a wide range of surface conditions in real-world environments to acquire resources and avoid predation. To effectively navigate a variety of surfaces, animals rely on several mechanisms including intrinsic mechanical responses, spinal-level central pattern generators, and neural commands that require sensory feedback. Muscle spindle Ia afferents play a critical role in providing sensory feedback and informing motor control strategies across legged vertebrate locomotion, which is apparent in cases where this sensory input is compromised. Here, we tested the hypothesis that spindle Ia afferents from hindlimb muscles are important for coordinating forelimb landing behavior in the cane toad. We performed bilateral sciatic nerve reinnervations to ablate the stretch reflex from distal hindlimb muscles while allowing for motor neuron recovery. We found that toads significantly delayed the onset and reduced the activation duration of their elbow extensor muscle following spindle Ia afferent ablation in the hindlimbs. However, reinnervated toads achieved similar elbow extension at touchdown to that of their pre-surgery state. Our results suggest that while toads likely tuned the activation timing of forelimb muscles in response to losing Ia afferent sensation from the hindlimbs they were likely able to employ compensatory strategies that allowed them to continue landing effectively with reduced sensory information during take-off. These findings indicate muscle spindle Ia afferents may contribute to tuning complex movements involving multiple limbs. The Company of Biologists Ltd 2023-01-19 /pmc/articles/PMC10086541/ /pubmed/36576050 http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/jeb.244629 Text en © 2023. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed.
spellingShingle Research Article
Duman, Alex
Azizi, Emanuel
Hindlimb muscle spindles inform preparatory forelimb coordination prior to landing in toads
title Hindlimb muscle spindles inform preparatory forelimb coordination prior to landing in toads
title_full Hindlimb muscle spindles inform preparatory forelimb coordination prior to landing in toads
title_fullStr Hindlimb muscle spindles inform preparatory forelimb coordination prior to landing in toads
title_full_unstemmed Hindlimb muscle spindles inform preparatory forelimb coordination prior to landing in toads
title_short Hindlimb muscle spindles inform preparatory forelimb coordination prior to landing in toads
title_sort hindlimb muscle spindles inform preparatory forelimb coordination prior to landing in toads
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10086541/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36576050
http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/jeb.244629
work_keys_str_mv AT dumanalex hindlimbmusclespindlesinformpreparatoryforelimbcoordinationpriortolandingintoads
AT aziziemanuel hindlimbmusclespindlesinformpreparatoryforelimbcoordinationpriortolandingintoads