Walking is a complex mechanism involving both automatic processes and conscious control. Its dysfunction can have multiple, sometimes extremely subtle causes, within the motor cortex, brain stem, spinal cord, or muscles. At Paris Brain Institute, Martin Carbo-Tano, Mathilde Lapoix, and their colleagues in the “Spinal Sensory Signaling” team, led by Claire Wyart (Inserm), have focused on a specific component of locomotion: forward propulsion.
In a study published in Nature Neuroscience, they show that it involves a region classically called the mesencephalic locomotor region, which controls the vigor and speed of movement and transmits the nervous message to the spinal cord via control neurons located in the brainstem.
This new mapping carried out in zebrafish corroborates recent studies in mice. It could eventually be extended to humans—helping to understand how movement control circuits can malfunction, in Parkinson’s disease notably.
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