Principles of spinal motoneuron control

Spinal motoneurons are the “final common neural pathway” that integrates inputs from the entire nervous system to make muscles contract and cause movement. Recent studies suggest that our textbook understanding of motoneuron control is incomplete, since long-held principles do not seem to generalise beyond very constrained situations. We are combining carefully designed experimental paradigms with recent technological advances to record the activity of tens of motoneurons in humans to understand the neural principles of motoneuron control. We are also studying various groups of neurological patients to understand how disfunction of particular regions of the nervous system affects this control.