Decerebrate Cat walks and exhibits multiple gait patterns

This is an old video of a cat exhibiting 3 different gait patterns as a treadmill is run at different speeds. Remarkably the cat was made decerebrate for the purpose of the experiment. This has lead researchers to the hypothesis that, when a quadruped walks/trots/gallops (or walks/runs in the case a biped), minimal control comes from the brain, and most of the control is computed morphologically through an implicit feedback structure in the bio-mechanical design. This phase transition phenomenon is still an active research area in the field of Passive Dynamic Locomotion.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Passive
• Dynamic
• Locomotion
• pdw
• cat
• decerebrate
• no
• brain
• feedback
• control

[Dexterprog]

I would remove the "no brain" part from the title as it is not correct and might confuse people that don't study medicine. Is this intercolicular derebration? or did they destroy the red nucleus?

[0zxr]

@Dexterprog Thanks - correction noted. My apologies if anyone was mislead by the original title My background is in engineering not biology, and unfortunately I have minimal information pertaining to the details of the experiment. I found the video quite interesting, so I thought I'd share it here. The title/description was just an attempt to best relay the information I had been given.

[luckscut]

Is this how Sarah Palin is able to walk?

[MakeEveryMomentCount]

While I do agree that modern technology is able to reduce the vast majority of practical tests on animals, past finds have been an essential element towards our current medical knowledge.

I'm sympathetic to animals (vegetarian) but to get angry at this old, relative-at-the-time, comparatively merciful experiment is to have your priorities very warped and out of touch.

The fact that this is a Cat and not say, a Frog; is probably also a huge factor in the passion of biased irritable youtubers.

[lordoftheriffs79]

@Dexterprog i think it is high decerebration, which is done above the red nucleus, cause the cat can run pretty much ok...

[Icewind007]

Holy crap. Zombie cat by Frankenstein.

[NaturalBrowniii]

@Dexterprog If this is the experiment that I think it is, the midbrain of the cat was sectioned off, so that the brain couldn't send any information to the spinal cord, which was still intact. At the beginning of the experiment the cat just dangled cuz the spinal cord didn't know what to do but then it eventually recognized the pattern and integrated the information so that the cat could walk despite the fact that it received any message from the brain to do so.

[158130682]

what an evil experiment with outstanding results

[TheRastaguy]

Alright. That... was one of the most fucked up things I've ever seen.

[hood2460]

This experiment from the 1970's (I think) demonstrate that motor pattern continuation is independent from the motor cortex. Motor patterns are kept via local circuitry in the form of reflex arcs in the spinal cord. Motor cortex input is only required to modify the pattern, not to maintain it.

[TransientSylph]

Oh gosh, they removed part of it's brain?!  Poor kitty! That's not fair!

[silviafarfallina]

@gr8Sweetfox This was ages ago. Scientists aren't evil conspiracy lunatics.

[SwissSteph]

@luckscut I laughed out loud.