Correlational analysis of fictive swimming in the lamprey reveals strong functional intersegmental coupling

1. Cycle-to-cycle fluctuations in cycle periods and intersegmental burst delays of ventral root activity were studied during stable fictive swimming in the adult lamprey spinal cord. High spatial resolution was obtained by recording from 16 ventral roots, 1/2 on each side of the spinal cord. For ipsilateral ventral roots, correlations between cycle periods on the same cycle were high (0.50 +/- 0.16, mean +/- SD), and autocorrelations of intersegmental delays with a shift of one cycle were low (0.03 +/- 0.06). Correlations between cycle periods tended to decrease with intersegmental spacing but remained positive over the range of spacings tested (1-47 segments). 2. Sinusoidal movement imposed on the caudal end of the spinal cord/notochord was used to entrain the fictive swimming rhythm. When the phase between the movement and the rhythm was perturbed, several cycles were required for the phase to return to its preferred value, indicating that in these experiments the effect of the movement was weak. In the absence of external perturbations, autocorrelations of delays between the movement and ventral root bursts with a shift of one cycle were high. 3. Numerical simulations with a simple stochastic phase model of the lamprey central pattern generator (CPG) were conducted. High correlations of periods and low autocorrelations of delays, the pattern observed experimentally, emerged as intersegmental connection strengths were increased. Coupling including both long and short connections produced this pattern of correlations with an average connection strength less than that required by short connections alone. 4. It is concluded that functional intersegmental coupling in the lamprey CPG during stable fictive swimming is strong. Specifically, the low autocorrelations of intersegmental delays indicate that intersegmental coupling is sufficiently strong to ensure that perturbations are almost completely corrected within one cycle.