Small inhibitory neuronal circuits have long been identified as key neuronal motifs to generate and modulate the coexisting rhythms of various motor functions. Our paper highlights the role of a cellular switching mechanism to orchestrate such circuits. The cellular switch makes the circuits reconfigurable, robust, adaptable, and externally controllable. Without this cellular mechanism, the circuit rhythms entirely rely on specific tunings of the synaptic connectivity, which makes them rigid, fragile, and difficult to control externally. We illustrate those properties on the much studied architecture of a small network controlling both the pyloric and gastric rhythms of crabs. The cellular switch is provided by a slow negative conductance often neglected in mathematical modeling of central pattern generators. We propose that this conductance is simple to model and key to computational studies of rhythmic circuit neuromodulation.

中文翻译：

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蜂窝开关编排有节奏的电路。

长期以来，小型抑制性神经元回路已被确定为产生和调节各种运动功能并存的节律的关键神经元图案。我们的论文重点介绍了蜂窝开关机制在协调此类电路中的作用。蜂窝开关使电路可重新配置，稳定，适应和外部控制。没有这种细胞机制，电路节律将完全依赖于突触连接性的特定调整，这会使它们变得僵硬，脆弱，并且难以从外部进行控制。我们将在控制螃蟹幽门和胃节律的小型网络的结构研究中说明这些特性。蜂窝开关是由缓慢的负电导提供的，该电导通常在中央模式发生器的数学建模中被忽略。