Lateralized movements require the coordinated contraction of different muscle groups, including trunk and limb muscles, located on opposite sides of the body, but it is not well understood how this is regulated at the spinal level. A new study shows that axial (trunk) muscles, which are mostly innervated by motor neurons of the medial motor column throughout the spinal cord, are themselves innervated by second-order interneurons originating both contralateral and ipsilateral to the motor neuron. By contrast, motor neurons innervating the limb muscles show a more restricted expression pattern in lateral motor columns and are innervated by a different subpopulation of interneurons that are mostly ipsilateral to the motor neuron.
References
Goetz, C., Pivetta, C. & Arber, S. Distinct limb and trunk premotor circuits establish laterality in the spinal cord. Neuron 85, 131–144 (2014)
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Lewis, S. Switching sides. Nat Rev Neurosci 16, 68 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3910
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3910