Motor neurons, the nerve cells that control muscles, have a reputation as passive messengers. But growing evidence suggests they do more than simply relay the brain’s commands.
Work in fruit flies suggests that motor neurons can send signals back to the brain to help organize the very movement sequences they carry out, researchers report August 24 in Nature Neuroscience .
Even when the muscles and motor neurons involved in a movement are mapped out, scientists still do not fully understand how the nervous system generates coordinated sequences of movement. For instance, the sucking motion fruit flies ( Drosophila melanogaster ) use to feed…
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