Exciting times in the tadpole spinal cord.

摘要

Given the 'relative, simplicity of the spinal cord compared to other areas of the CNS spinal locomotor networks should have been among the easiest vertebrate networks to characterise. Brown provided the first evidence for a spinal central pattern-generating network almost a century ago (Brown, 1911). He also provided insight into their basic organisation that has formed the foundation for all subsequent analyses of spinal networks. However, the characterisation of these networks has not been straightforward: given the difficulties of understanding much simpler networks this should probably not have come as a surprise.