Study of Tritonia crawl circuit and ciliated motor cells

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Common rhythmic motor behaviors such as walking, chewing, and breathing are controlled by neural circuits and central pattern generators. Recent studies show single neural circuits can be reconfigured to control two totally different motor behaviors. The marine mollusc Tritonia diomedea possesses a well described rhythmic motor pattern, the escape swim response, and evidence suggests the escape swim control circuit may also control the non-rhythmic/non- muscular crawling behavior. Tritonia diomedea's non- muscular crawling is cilia based and therefore offers the additional opportunity of studying the mechanisms for ciliary control and coordination. This proposal represents the beginnings of a project focusing on the crawling motor system, specifically: a characterization of the neural mechanism responsible for coordinating the motor output / cilia beating (Aim I) and the cellular machinery of cilia beating control (Aim II). The completion of this project will produce a detailed description of how a nervous system can control cilia behavior, the first step of understanding the entire crawling motor system. Cilia lining brain ventricles, airways, and oviducts may be coordinated under nervous control and Tritonia offers an excellent opportunity to discover how. This project may also contribute to the understanding and treatment of motor system disorders as well as demonstrate how the CNS may control non-muscular motor behaviors.