Prolonged responses to brief triggering or releasing stimuli are commonplace in animal behaviour. The initiation of locomotion is an example but hypotheses for the central nervous origin of locomotory rhythms generally do not explain how activity is sustained. After a brief review, which suggests that positive feedback excitation could be involved, evidence from Xenopus embryos is considered. Here a brief skin stimulus can evoke long episodes of swimming even in curarized embryos. Feedback excitation provides a possible explanation for sustaining fictive swimming. This hypothesis is evaluated by simulation of simple neuronal networks using a physiologically realistic digital computer modelling programme. The results from simulations suggest that: (1) positive feedback excitation could sustain activity either in central pattern generators for locomotion or in postural motor systems and (2) that the model networks tested here are not appropriate to produce the pattern of motor output from the Xenopus embryo spinal cord.
In the field: an interview with Harald Wolf
(update)-Conversation.jpg?versionId=3747)
In our new Conversation, Harald Wolf talks about his fieldwork experiences working with desert ants in Tunisia to understand their navigation.
Propose a new Workshop
-GSWorkshop.png?versionId=3747)
Our Workshops bring together leading experts and early-career researchers from a range of scientific backgrounds. Applications are now open to propose Workshops for 2024, one of which will be held in a Global South country.
Julian Dow steps down and John Terblanche joins the JEB team
-NewEditor.png?versionId=3747)
After 15 years with the journal, Julian Dow from University of Glasgow, UK, is stepping down as a Monitoring Editor. We wish Julian all the best for the future and welcome John Terblanche, Stellenbosch University, South Africa, who is joining the team. Julian talks about his long association with The Company of Biologists and the journal and John tells us about his life and career in this News article.
The capture of crude oil droplets by filter feeders at high and low Reynolds numbers
-FilterFeeders.jpg?versionId=3747)
Researchers from the University of Montreal, Canada, reveal how tiny filter feeding barnacles and Daphnia entrap and consume minute droplets of crude oil, introducing the pollutant at the bottom of the food chain.
Patterns and processes in amphibious fish
-Review.png?versionId=3747)
In their Review, Keegan Lutek, Cassandra Donatelli and Emily Standen discuss the biomechanics and neural control of terrestrial locomotion in amphibious fish. They explore how locomotor mode depends on body shape, physical constraints and phylogeny.
Social media
