Central pattern generators and interphyletic awareness

Our understandings of how neuronal networks organized as central pattern generators generate motor behavior have greatly increased in the last 40 years. In the 60s, many investigators studying invertebrate motor behaviors were not aware of the work of those studying vertebrate motor behaviors, and vice versa. In the 70s, key conferences provided venues for important interactions among investigators working on preparations in different species. These interactions, termed interphyletic awareness, continued in the 80s and 90s at major conferences and played important roles in the development of our understandings of central pattern generators for motor behavior in these decades.