The construction of movement by the spinal cord

We used a computational analysis to identify the basic elements with which the vertebrate spinal cord constructs one complex behavior. This analysis e xtracted a small set of muscle synergies from the range of muscle activatio ns generated by cutaneous stimulation of the frog hindlimb. The flexible co mbination of these synergies was able to account for the large number of di fferent motor patterns produced by different animals. These results therefo re demonstrate one strategy used by the vertebrate nervous system to produc e movement in a computationally simple manner.