Motor coordination without action potentials in the mammalian spinal cord

Coordination of neuronal activity to produce movement is generally thought to depend on spike activity in premotor interneuronal networks. Here we sho w that even without such activity, the neonatal rat spinal cord could produ ce a stable motor rhythm mediated by the synchronization of motor neuron os cillations across gap junctions. These rhythms, however, were not coordinat ed between motor pools in different parts of the spinal cord. We further sh owed that neural coordination through gap junctions contributed to the fund amental organization and function of spinal motor systems. These results su ggest that neural coordination across gap junctions is important in motor-p attern generation in the mammalian spinal cord.