  Larval zebrafish exhibit a variety of complex undulatory swimming patterns.
This repertoire is controlled by the 300 neurons projecting from brain into
spinal cord. Understanding how descending control signals shape the output of
spinal circuits, however, is nontrivial. We have therefore developed a
segmental oscillator model (using NEURON) to investigate this system. We found
that adjusting the strength of NMDA and glycinergic synapses enabled the
generation of oscillation (tail-beat) frequencies over the range exhibited in
different larval swim patterns. In addition, we developed a kinematic model to
visualize the more complex axial bending patterns used during prey capture.
