ArticleNature communications2020
Distributed control of motor circuits for backward walking in Drosophila.
Article in Nature communications, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 31 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
31 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 74 citations in OpenAlex.
- The evolutionary trajectory of drosophilid walking.Current biology : CB · 2022Pooled it
- Convergent olfactory circuits for courtship in Drosophila revealed by the circuit-tracing tool ds-Tango.Current biology : CB · 2026Article
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- Cell body clustering drives gap junction-mediated synchronous activity in command neurons.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- A new system for studying neuronal remodeling and its relation to behavior in Drosophila.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Neural control of coordinated wing and leg movements during a terrestrial threat display.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- A split-GAL4 driver line resource foreLife · 2025Article
- Sexual dimorphism and the impact of aging on ball rolling-associated locomotor behavior in Drosophila.Biology open · 2024Article
- Activity of nested neural circuits drives different courtship songs in Drosophila.Nature neuroscience · 2024Article
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- Mechanosensory and command contributions to the Drosophila grooming sequence.Current biology : CB · 2024Article
- Synaptic architecture of leg and wing premotor control networks inbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- NeuronBridge: an intuitive web application for neuronal morphology search across large data sets.BMC bioinformatics · 2024Article
- Functional labeling of individualized postsynaptic neurons using optogenetics and trans-Tango in Drosophila (FLIPSOT).PLoS genetics · 2024Article
- Descending control of motor sequences in Drosophila.Current opinion in neurobiology · 2024Review
- A leg model based on anatomical landmarks to study 3D joint kinematics of walking inFrontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology · 2024Article
- Mechanosensory and command contributions to thebioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
- Variable task switching in the feeding network ofJournal of neurophysiology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
How do descending inputs from the brain control leg motor circuits to change how an animal walks? Conceptually, descending neurons are thought to function either as command-type neurons, in which a single type of descending neuron exerts a high-level control to elicit a coordinated change in motor output, or through a population coding mechanism, whereby a group of neurons, each with local effects, act in combination to elicit a global motor response. The Drosophila Moonwalker Descending Neurons (MDNs), which alter leg motor circuit dynamics so that the fly walks backwards, exemplify the command-type mechanism. Here, we identify several dozen MDN target neurons within the leg motor circuits, and show that two of them mediate distinct and highly-specific changes in leg muscle activity during backward walking: LBL40 neurons provide the hindleg power stroke during stance phase; LUL130 neurons lift the legs at the end of stance to initiate swing. Through these two effector neurons, MDN directly controls both the stance and swing phases of the backward stepping cycle. These findings suggest that command-type descending neurons can also operate through the distributed control of local motor circuits.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.