Calcium imaging of network function in the developing spinal cord.

We have used calcium imaging to visualize the spatiotemporal organization of activity generated by in vitro spinal cord preparations of the developing chick embryo and the neonatal mouse. During each episode of spontaneous activity, we found that chick spinal neurons were activated rhythmically and synchronously throughout the transverse extent of the spinal cord. At the onset of a spontaneous episode, optical activity originated in the ventrolateral part of the cord. Back-labeling of spinal interneurons with calcium dyes suggested that this ventrolateral initiation was mediated by activation of a class of interneurons, located dorsomedial to the motor nucleus, that receive direct monosynaptic input from motoneurons. Studies of locomotor-like activity in the anterior lumbar segments of the neonatal mouse cord revealed the existence of a rostrocaudal wave in the oscillatory component of each cycle of rhythmic motoneuron activity. This finding raises the possibility that the activation of mammalian motoneurons during locomotion may share some of the same rostrocaudally organized mechanisms that evolved to control swimming in fishes.