Spontaneous rhythmic neuronal activity is generated in the developing vertebrate nervous system. The patterned activity spreads diffusely throughout the fetal neuraxis. Here we demonstrate the ability of the fetal rat spinal cord and medulla to generate and transmit robust rhythmic patterns in the absence of synaptic activity. Regular rhythmic discharges were produced by fetal tissue bathed in ...

The basic neuronal networks generating coordinated rhythmic motor activity, such as left-right alternate limb movement during locomotion in mammals, are located in the spinal cord. In rat fetuses, the spatial pattern of the rhythmic activity between the left and right sides is synchronous at and shortly after rhythmogenesis before the pattern becomes alternate by birth. The neuronal mechanisms ...

The neural mechanism of skilled movements, such as reaching, has been considered to differ from that of rhythmic movement such as locomotion. It is generally thought that skilled movements are consciously controlled by the brain, while rhythmic movements are usually controlled autonomously by the spinal cord and brain stem. However, several studies in recent decades have suggested that neural n...

In Homarus, the central pattern generators for the rhythmic motor activities of the gastric teeth and the pyloric chamber are located in the stomatogastric ganglion. It is shown that independent gastric and pyloric oscillators are also contained in higher nervous centres (the commissural ganglia) and provide a phasic rhythmic input to the stomatogastric pattern generators. This demonstrates tha...

BACKGROUND The mechanisms responsible for generating rhythmic motor activity in the developing spinal cord of the chick embryo are poorly understood. Here we investigate whether the activity of motoneurons occurs before other neuronal populations at the beginning of each cycle of rhythmic discharge. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS The spatiotemporal organization of neural activity in transvers...

Xenopus embryos struggle when restrained. Struggling involves rhythmic movements of large amplitude, in which waves of bending propagate from the tail to the head. Underlying this, electrical activity in myotomal muscles occurs in rhythmic bursts that alternate on either side of a segment. Bursts in ipsilateral segments occur in a caudo-rostral sequence. Curarized embryos can generate motor ner...

Movement error is a driving force behind motor learning. For motor learning with discrete movements, such as point-to-point reaching, it is believed that the brain uses error information of the immediately preceding movement only. However, in the case of continuous and repetitive movements (i.e., rhythmic movements), there is a ceaseless inflow of performance information. Thus, an accurate temp...

[Purpose] The purpose of this study was to compare the gait abilities and motor recovery abilities in stroke patients following overground gait training with or without rhythmic auditory stimulation. [Subjects and Methods] Forty patients with hemiplegia resulting from stroke were divided into a rhythmic auditory stimulation gait training group (n=20) and a gait training group (n=20). The rhythm...

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of music therapy and rhythmic exercise on health related quality of life, blood pressure and upper extremity muscle strength in the institution-dwelling elderly women. METHODS The study was designed using a nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design. The participants consisted of 35 elders (18 in the experimental group an...