Natural Variation in Biological and Simulated Central Pattern Generators

dc.contributor.advisorCohen, Avis Hen_US
dc.contributor.authorBoothe, David Lloyden_US
dc.contributor.departmentNeuroscience and Cognitive Scienceen_US
dc.contributor.publisherDigital Repository at the University of Marylanden_US
dc.contributor.publisherUniversity of Maryland (College Park, Md.)en_US
dc.date.accessioned2007-09-28T14:59:30Z
dc.date.available2007-09-28T14:59:30Z
dc.date.issued2007-07-30en_US
dc.description.abstractHere we analyze natural variability within two types of systems. 1, The output of the biological spinal central pattern generator for locomotion in the cat, and 2, Sets of stochastic neural networks giving an output qualitatively similar to that observed within the biological system. Fictive locomotion contains asymmetric transitions between the flexion and extension phases. The transition from extension to flexion is: 1, Always strongly phase locked; 2, Composed of overlapping extensor burst offsets and flexor burst onsets; and 3, Invariant to changes in mean cycle period. The transition from flexion to extension is: 1, Weakly phase locked within bouts containing short cycle periods, and well phase locked in bouts containing long cycle periods; 2, Offset times of flexor bursts and the onset times of extensor bursts do not overlap; and 3, Strength of phase locking depends critically upon relative timing of flexor offset and extensor onset. Stochastic neural networks that qualitatively reproducing the timing relationships observed within the biological system have outputs that depend upon both the architecture of the network as well as model neuronal type (oscillatory-non-oscillatory). Within models designed to reproduce the bi-phasic activity observed in some muscles, correlation of the bi-phasic burst is strongly influenced by model connectivity. Additionally sets of leaky integrators have burst durations, which are sometimes well correlated even though they are well separated in time. Half-center models producing alternating output are strongly influenced by the internal structure of simulated neurons. A half-center composed of a pair of leaky-integrators has transitions between phases which are always well phase locked, and overlapping. Half-centers composed of intrinsically oscillatory Morris-Lecar neurons have transitions between phases whose phase locking is parameter dependent. This parameter dependence is mainly due to changes in the timing of burst offset and burst onset. We conclude that the output of the biological central pattern generator is likely to be strongly influenced by the intrinsically oscillatory properties of its neurons. Models containing non-intrinsically oscillatory simulated neurons are unable to account for observed variability within the output of the biological system.en_US
dc.format.extent6507458 bytes
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/7264
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledBiology, Neuroscienceen_US
dc.titleNatural Variation in Biological and Simulated Central Pattern Generatorsen_US
dc.typeDissertationen_US

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