GATTO LAB Sensorimotor Adaptation
Motor Adaptation
Sensory and descending input impinge onto the spinal circuitry, with information flowing from the periphery to the brain and back in a constantly updating closed loop. Descending commands are transmitted to the spinal cord to coordinate the appropriate sequence of muscle contractions, for example instructing slow- and fast-paced locomotion. At the same time, ongoing motor activity- generated feedback are broadcasted to a number of supraspinal centers to a) evaluate whether the endpoint movement matched the predicted successful completion of the task (efference copy), and b) to perceive a new state and update the decision process. We aim to dissect the local and supraspinal circuits that by integrating sensorimotor information drive short- and long- term motor adaptation.
1. Short-term locomotor adaptation
Mice adapt their gait (stride, swing/stance, kinematic features, such as joint position, angles, velocity, acceleration) using sensory feedback (Gatto et al. 2021), key populations of the central pattern generators (Hayashi et al., 2023), cerebellar pathways (Tutas et al. 2024, Tolve et al. 2024).
2. Comparing locomotor adaptive strategies across species
Our lab aims at understanding how the spinal circuitry encodes, decodes and integrates sensation and actions, and to which extent these sensorimotor policies are conserved across tasks, contexts and species (Hosseini et al. 2024).
3. The circuits ensuring the robustness and flexibility of scratch reflex
We identified a premotor microcircuit, composed of excitatory (V2a) and inhibitory (V1 and V2b) neurons, engaged in the regulation of flexor and extensor alternation during both low- (locomotion) and high-frequency (scratching) rhythmic behaviors. Our analyses showed that inhibitory and excitatory neurons function together to generate faster oscillations, and the cooperation dynamics among the three populations are more complex than a linear summation of functions.
