TY - JOUR TI - Monosynaptic premotor circuit tracing reveals neural substrates for oro-motor coordination AU - Stanek, Edward, IV AU - Cheng, Steven AU - Takatoh, Jun AU - Han, Bao-Xia AU - Wang, Fan A2 - Mason, Peggy VL - 3 PY - 2014 DA - 2014/04/30 SP - e02511 C1 - eLife 2014;3:e02511 DO - 10.7554/eLife.02511 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.02511 AB - Feeding behaviors require intricately coordinated activation among the muscles of the jaw, tongue, and face, but the neural anatomical substrates underlying such coordination remain unclear. In this study, we investigate whether the premotor circuitry of jaw and tongue motoneurons contain elements for coordination. Using a modified monosynaptic rabies virus-based transsynaptic tracing strategy, we systematically mapped premotor neurons for the jaw-closing masseter muscle and the tongue-protruding genioglossus muscle. The maps revealed that the two groups of premotor neurons are distributed in regions implicated in rhythmogenesis, descending motor control, and sensory feedback. Importantly, we discovered several premotor connection configurations that are ideally suited for coordinating bilaterally symmetric jaw movements, and for enabling co-activation of specific jaw, tongue, and facial muscles. Our findings suggest that shared premotor neurons that form specific multi-target connections with selected motoneurons are a simple and general solution to the problem of orofacial coordination. KW - premotor circuit KW - monosynaptic rabies virus KW - jaw motoneuron KW - tongue motoneuron KW - orofacial coordination JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -