Analysis of Drosophila motor neuron activity patterns with neural analogs

A network of reciprocally inhibitory motorneurons has been previously postulated to account for the firing patterns of motor units during dipteran flight. Possible activity patterns of such a network were analyzed by means of appropriately interconnected neuromimes. This theoretical analysis showed that the proposed network can account for many aspects of dipteran motor unit activity patterns including firing in specific sequences, stability, and resetting of the firing pattern by antidromic spikes. In addition, the analysis showed that one aspect of physiological activity, motor unit phase locking, can not be explained simply on the basis of network properties alone; evidently specific membrane properties of the dipteran motor units also play an essential role in establishing the activity pattern.