The neural bases of vertebrate motor behaviour through the lens of evolution

The primary driver of the evolution of the vertebrate nervous system has been the necessity to move, along with the requirement of controlling the plethora of motor behavioural repertoires seen among the vast and diverse vertebrate species. Understanding the neural basis of motor control through the perspective of evolution, mandates thorough examinations of the nervous systems of species in critical phylogenetic positions. We present here, a broad review of studies on the neural motor infrastructure of the lamprey, a basal and ancient vertebrate, which enjoys a unique phylogenetic position as being an extant representative of the earliest group of vertebrates. From the central pattern generators in the spinal cord to the microcircuits of the pallial cortex, work on the lamprey brain over the years, has provided detailed insights into the basic organization (a bauplan ) of the ancestral vertebrate brain, and narrates a compelling account of common ancestry of fundamental aspects of the neural bases for motion control, maintained through half a billion years of vertebrate evolution. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Systems neuroscience through the lens of evolutionary theory’.

Special Issue: Neural Bases of Cognitive Processing

The main aim of Cognitive Neuroscience is investigating how brain functions lead to mental processes and behavior [...]

Texture Perception

Texture perception is a rich subdomain of vision science that focuses on how the visual system encodes and interprets images that can be defined in terms of self-similarity over space. The field’s understanding of the computational and neural bases of texture perception has advanced, drawing upon key results from psychophysics, cognitive neuroscience, and visual development. The relevance of texture representations to a broader set of visual mechanisms supporting “statistical vision” is also discussed, with an emphasis on the challenges and potential rewards of studying texture perception in the context of natural stimuli and ecologically relevant tasks.