Control of tumbling during the locust jump.

Locust can jump precisely to a target, yet they can also tumble during the trajectory. We propose two mechanisms that would allow the locust to control tumbling during the jump. The first is that prior to the jump, locusts adjust the pitch of their body to move the center of mass closer to the intended thrust vector.

Neuromechanical simulation of the locust jump.

The neural circuitry and biomechanics of kicking in locusts have been studied to understand their roles in the control of both kicking and jumping. It has been hypothesized that the same neural circuit and biomechanics governed both behaviors but this hypothesis was not testable with current technology. We built a neuromechanical model to test this and to gain a better understanding of the role of the semi-lunar process (SLP) in jump dynamics.

AnimatLab: a 3D graphics environment for neuromechanical simulations.

The nervous systems of animals evolved to exert dynamic control of behavior in response to the needs of the animal and changing signals from the environment. To understand the mechanisms of dynamic control requires a means of predicting how individual neural and body elements will interact to produce the performance of the entire system. AnimatLab is a software tool that provides an approach to this problem through computer simulation.

Practical tools for analysing rhythmic neural activity.

This report describes an integrated software package, DataView, which contains a number of tools for analysing rhythmic neural activity. These include simple autocorrelation, a merge-and-drop filter, an enhanced version of the Poisson surprise method and a flexible hill-and-valley analysis tool. The package contains facilities for identifying, examining, and if appropriate, correcting, outliers arising from misidentification or rhythm abnormalities.

Electrical coupling synchronises spinal motoneuron activity during swimming in hatchling Xenopus tadpoles.

The role of electrical coupling between neurons in the swimming rhythm generator of Xenopus embryos has been studied using pharmacological blockade of gap junctions. A conspicuous effect of 18beta-glycyrrhetinic acid (18beta-GA) and carbenoxolone, which have been shown to block electrical coupling in this preparation, was to increase the duration of ventral root bursts throughout the spinal cord during swimming. The left-right coordination, the swimming frequency and the duration of swimming episodes were not affected by concentrations of 18beta-GA which significantly increased burst durations.