During development, motoneurons experience significant changes in their size and in the number and strength of connections that they receive, which requires adaptive changes in their passive and active electrical properties. Even after reaching maturity, motoneurons continue to adjust their intrinsic excitability and synaptic activity for proper functioning of the sensorimotor circuit in accord...

Delaying clinical disease onset would greatly reduce neurodegenerative disease burden, but the mechanisms influencing early preclinical progression are poorly understood. Here, we show that in mouse models of familial motoneuron (MN) disease, SOD1 mutants specifically render vulnerable MNs dependent on endogenous neuroprotection signaling involving excitability and mammalian target of rapamycin...

The deleterious effects of aging on force production are observable from the age 40 upwards, depending measure. Neural mechanisms contributing to maximum and rate development have been suggested as descending drive supraspinal centers, spinal motoneuron excitability, corticospinal inhibition drive; all which influence motor unit recruitment and/or firing rate. Resistance-trained Master athletes...

Neuron electrical properties are critical to function and generally subtype specific, as are patterns of axonal and dendritic projections. Specification of motoneuron morphology and axon pathfinding has been studied extensively, implicating the combinatorial action of Lim-homeodomain transcription factors. However, the specification of electrical properties is not understood. Here, we address t...

Although Renshaw cells (RCs) were discovered over half a century ago, their precise role in recurrent inhibition and ability to modulate motoneuron excitability have yet to be established. Indirect measurements of recurrent inhibition have suggested only a weak modulatory effect but are limited by the lack of observed motoneuron responses to inputs from single RCs. Here we present dual recordin...

During early postnatal development, between birth and postnatal days 8-11, mice start to achieve weight-bearing locomotion. In association with the progression of weight-bearing locomotion there are presumed developmental changes in the intrinsic electrical properties of spinal -motoneurons. However, these developmental changes in the properties of -motoneuron properties have not been systemati...

It was shown by means of current and voltage clamp measurements in combination with the intracellular perfusion method that the isolated motoneuron nerve cell bodies of the cockroach Periplaneta americana show overshoot action potentials. A regenerative Na current was found to be responsible for the excitability of these membranes; however, the results are not in agreement with a de novo synthe...