TY - JOUR
T1 - Distributed rhythm generators underlie Caenorhabditis elegans forward locomotion
AU - Fouad, Anthony D.
AU - Teng, Shelly
AU - Mark, Julian R.
AU - Liu, Alice
AU - Alvarez-Illera, Pilar
AU - Ji, Hongfei
AU - Du, Angelica
AU - Bhirgoo, Priya D.
AU - Cornblath, Eli
AU - Guan, Sihui Asuka
AU - Fang-Yen, Christopher
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Mei Zhen, Quan Wen, Min Wu, Michelle Po, Yishi Jin, Andres Villu Mariq, and Alexander Gottschalk for providing strains. Some strains were provided by the by the CGC, which is funded by NIH Office of Research Infrastructure Programs (P40 OD010440). CF-Y was supported by the National Institutes of Health, Ellison Medical Foundation, and Sloan Research Foundation. ADF was supported by the National Institutes of Health. ST was supported by an Abraham Noordergraaf Research Fellowship and a Littlejohn Fellowship. JRM was supported by a Holtz Undergraduate Research Fellowship. We thank Mei Zhen, Michael Nusbaum, David Raizen, Vijay Balasubramanian, Robert Kalb, Gal Haspel, Brian Chow, and Edward Fouad for helpful suggestions and discussions, Matthew Churgin for technical assistance, and Wassana Techadilok for assistance with figure preparation.
PY - 2018/1/23
Y1 - 2018/1/23
N2 - Coordinated rhythmic movements are ubiquitous in animal behavior. In many organisms, chains of neural oscillators underlie the generation of these rhythms. In C. elegans, locomotor wave generation has been poorly understood; in particular, it is unclear where in the circuit rhythms are generated, and whether there exists more than one such generator. We used optogenetic and ablation experiments to probe the nature of rhythm generation in the locomotor circuit. We found that multiple sections of forward locomotor circuitry are capable of independently generating rhythms. By perturbing different components of the motor circuit, we localize the source of secondary rhythms to cholinergic motor neurons in the midbody. Using rhythmic optogenetic perturbation, we demonstrate bidirectional entrainment of oscillations between different body regions. These results show that, as in many other vertebrates and invertebrates, the C. elegans motor circuit contains multiple oscillators that coordinate activity to generate behavior.
AB - Coordinated rhythmic movements are ubiquitous in animal behavior. In many organisms, chains of neural oscillators underlie the generation of these rhythms. In C. elegans, locomotor wave generation has been poorly understood; in particular, it is unclear where in the circuit rhythms are generated, and whether there exists more than one such generator. We used optogenetic and ablation experiments to probe the nature of rhythm generation in the locomotor circuit. We found that multiple sections of forward locomotor circuitry are capable of independently generating rhythms. By perturbing different components of the motor circuit, we localize the source of secondary rhythms to cholinergic motor neurons in the midbody. Using rhythmic optogenetic perturbation, we demonstrate bidirectional entrainment of oscillations between different body regions. These results show that, as in many other vertebrates and invertebrates, the C. elegans motor circuit contains multiple oscillators that coordinate activity to generate behavior.
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U2 - 10.7554/eLife.29913
DO - 10.7554/eLife.29913
M3 - Article
C2 - 29360037
AN - SCOPUS:85042070380
VL - 7
JO - eLife
JF - eLife
SN - 2050-084X
M1 - e29913
ER -