Functional diversity of excitatory commissural interneurons in adult zebrafish

Flexibility in the bilateral coordination of muscle contraction underpins variable locomotor movements or gaits. While the locomotor rhythm is generated by ipsilateral excitatory interneurons, less is known about the commissural excitatory interneurons. Here we examined how the activity of the V0v interneurons – an important commissural neuronal class – varies with the locomotor speed in adult zebrafish. Although V0v interneurons are molecularly homogenous, their activity pattern during locomotion is not uniform. They consist of two distinct types dependent on whether they display rhythmicity or not during locomotion. The rhythmic V0v interneurons were further subdivided into three sub-classes engaged sequentially, first at slow then intermediate and finally fast locomotor speeds. Their order of recruitment is defined by scaling their synaptic current with their input resistance. Thus we uncover, in an adult vertebrate, a novel organizational principle for a key class of commissural interneurons and their recruitment pattern as a function of locomotor speed. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.18579.001