Talk:Central pattern generator

message: This article requires some updating for the references which are not appropriately quoted; i.e. 27 does not exist and 26 is not the right reference. Looks like there was a shift at some point...Sebzskp (talk) 13:47, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Feel free to improve the article in any way that seems good to you. Looie496 (talk) 16:26, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: In this part, the division into three subdivisions seems not to be justified, as all of them are treating quite the same, with only different accents. --77.191.235.22 (talk) 20:53, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neuromodulation 

message: A useful source for updating information, freely available, may be Marder, E & Bucher, D (2001). Central pattern generators and the control of rhythmic movements. Current Biology, 11, R986-996. http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(01)00581-4 TristramWyatt (talk) 12:15, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a bit antiquated but, yes, still possibly useful. Looie496 (talk) 13:42, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Useful source

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replies: text: I just tried clinking the link, http://www.bio.brandeis.edu/biomath/mike/network.html and it failed. RDXelectric (talk) 06:01, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: This article begins with the following:
:Central pattern generators (CPGs) are biological neural circuits that produce rhythmic outputs in the absence of rhythmic input.[1][2] They are the source of the tightly-coupled patterns of neural activity that drive rhythmic motions like walking, breathing, or chewing. Importantly, the ability to function without input from higher brain areas does not mean that CPGs don’t receive modulatory inputs, or that their outputs are fixed. Flexibility in response to sensory input is a fundamental quality of CPG driven behavior. [1][2] 
However, this implies that CPGs are identifiable as such, but in fact CPGs cannot be found and may not exist as separate entities but rather are functions of the spinal nerves or other ganglia.
As far as being tightly-coupled patterns, there are alternative models Authur D. Kuo, Motor Control, 2002, 6. 129-145 which suggest that CPGs are "a filter for processing sensory information rather than a generator of commands." If we consider walking as an example, the question arises, "What determines the periodicy of the gait?" If a purely feed-forward, command driven system is assumed then there is no way to synchronize with the natural mechanical period of the legs. If these two systems are not synchronized, energy is lost in forcing the legs to conform to the driven cycle. Logically, wasting energy should not happen, so the CPGs must be receiving sensory input to set the timing of the motor commands.
Kuo also argues that a feedforward command function behaves poorly in cases of unexpected disturbances to the rhythm, adding that a feedback component is necessary to deal with such occurrences. The feedforward function is necessary to generate the fictive movements that are known to arise from CPGs and to keep the rhythm going when the feedback information is noisy and the feedback function is necessary to respond to stumbles and other physical interruptions to the gait.
In the simplest case of one CPG controlling one motor neuron, it would be possible to identify a small set of neurons comprising the CPG. However in the actual situation there are many muscles being driven in synchronized sequences in different phases of the cycle suggesting there are many neurons contributing to the CPG and making localization impossible. Dr. Peggy Mason, professor of Neurobiology at the University of Chicago, describes "Central Pattern Generator"  REF BLOCKED (Youtube) as a conceptual term and one of the reasons is that they cannot be found. It may be that all of this distributed network is working together as a unit. This configuration could easily adjust to different demands (running vs. walking) where the precise phasing and strength of the muscle contraction would differ but the basic neural circuits remain the same.
All in all, looking at the subject of CPGs from an engineering point of view adds understanding because while biology can describe the what and where of the subject, engineering casts light on the how.
 RDXelectric (talk) 21:53, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Introduction 

message: The design of artificial, mainly electronic, implementations of CPGs has received considerable attention in the community of bio-inspired robotics. The interest stems mainly from the fact that CPG-like circuits and architectures can solve complex problems, such as the adaptive generation of trajectories for insect-like robots, at a much lower computational cost compared to conventional approaches based on forward and inverse kinematic models. A wide variety of such locomotion controllers have been realized, adapted to biped, quadruped, hexapod and even swimming robots. One possible approach is predicated on the notions of connectionism and emergence, and hinges around creating a network of coupled non-linear oscillators, whose connections are modulated to obtain the sustained generation of a locomotion pattern of interest.
Frasca M, Area P, Fortuna L 
"Bio-Inspired Emergent Control of Locomotion Systems, Singapore: World Scientific, 2004"
 Similarly to their biological counterparts, such circuits intrinsically oscillate in a periodic manner, namely generate limit cycles, under the influence of afferences from sensory inputs and "higher areas". One example of a small-sized but versatile generator for controlling an insect-like robot was demonstrated based on 24 non-linear electronic oscillators.
 ( Lminati (talk) 15:25, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed addition at the end of the "Locomotion" section