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Developmental biology

Senseless motion

Nature volume 416, pages 131–132 (2002)Cite this article

Rhythmic movements such as locomotion are produced by oscillatory circuits in the central nervous system. Work in fruitflies shows that the neural circuitry for such movements develops without peripheral sensory feedback.

Human babies kick, turn and wriggle before birth. Likewise, chick, frog, fish, lobster and fly embryos move before hatching1,2,3. In adults, rhythmic patterns of movement, such as flying, swimming, crawling and breathing, are produced by central pattern generators, groups of neurons in the central nervous system that can generate rhythmic motor patterns in the absence of input from sensory neurons at the body's periphery, although sensory input modifies the centrally generated motor patterns to the needs of the animal4. The precocious movements seen in embryos are thought to result from early activity in these pattern-generating neural circuits which will eventually develop to produce behaviourally relevant rhythmic movements after birth or hatching5.

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Figure 1: Embryo waves — peristaltic motion in a late-stage fruitfly embryo, just before hatching.

MICHAEL BATE & MATTHIAS LANDGRAF

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  1. Volen Center, MS 013, Brandeis University, Waltham, 02545, Massachusetts, USA

    Eve Marder

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  1. Eve Marder
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Correspondence to Eve Marder.

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Marder, E. Senseless motion. Nature 416, 131–132 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/416131a

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