Spatial Interaction of Otolith mediated Collic Reflexes

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Project 2, Spatial interactions of otolith mediated collic reflexes (Gdowski, PI), asks how the vestibular signals arising from otolith endorgans, which detect horizontal and vertical acceleration, are used to activate neck muscles that reflexively reorient the head. Cervical injury affects 1 million U.S. lives annually, yet we are just beginning to understand how postural reflexes that evolved to protect the neck are controlled. Progress has been hampered, in part, because of the complexity of the neck musculature and its multiple functions in reorienting gaze and reflexively stabilizing the head with respect to the body. Vestibulospinal (VS) pathways are richly innervated by converging otolith inputs. The signals carried by the VS pathways bilaterally and reciprocally activate neck muscles during static tilts and linear translations of the body. We hypothesize that neck muscle activity will exhibit spatial tuning when combinations of tilt and translation are imposed on the body sequentially throughout 3-D space. We further hypothesize that the spatial tuning of neck muscles is causally related to the spatial tuning of responses of vestibulospinal neurons. To test these hypotheses experiments will be carried out in squirrel monkeys in which the electromyography (EMG) of neck muscles and neural activity of VS pathways are recorded. Different combinations of tilt and translation will be imposed on the body throughout 3-D space. Initial experiments will determine if specific groups of neck muscles exhibit spatial tuning during tilts and translations in different directions. The second set of experiments will determine if VS neurons, recorded in the vestibular nuclei, exhibit spatial tuned responses during tilts and translations in different directions. VS neurons will be identified physiologically by antidromic stimulation. In addition, neck EMG activity and VS neuron activity will be recorded simultaneously so that spike-triggered averaging (SpikeTA) can be used to identify functional relationships between neural discharge and EMG activity. The spatial tuning of each neck muscle will be compared to the collective spatial tuning properties of sub-populations of VS neurons identified as functionally-related to the neck muscle (identified through SpikeTA). This analysis will be used to determine if the spatially-tuned neck EMG activity are causally related to the spatial properties of VS pathways. In the final experiments, the head will be allowed to move in the direction of translation while the responses of VS neurons are recorded. The directions of translation will be chosen based upon direction that maximally activates the neuron. These data will used us to determine how otolith signals are modified during the execution of collic reflexes. The results of these experiments are significant to our understanding of how otolith signals influence the orientation of the head during normal activities such as locomotion.