Gap junction-mediated glycinergic inhibition ensures precise temporal patterning in vocal behavior

Precise neuronal firing is especially important for behaviors highly dependent on the correct sequencing and timing of muscle activity patterns, such as acoustic signaling. Acoustic signaling an communication modality vertebrates, including many teleost fishes. Toadfishes are well known to exhibit high temporal fidelity in synchronous motoneuron within a hindbrain network directly determining structure natural calls. Here, we investigated how these motoneurons maintain activation. We show that pronounced precision population-level motoneuronal depends gap junction-mediated, glycinergic inhibition generates period reduced probability Super-resolution microscopy confirms release sites formed by subset adjacent premotoneurons contacting somata dendrites. In aggregate, evidence supports hypothesis provides mechanism achieving synchrony millisecond range rapid modulation waveforms.