A duet Juvin – Bertrand now leads the CPGs team

Laurent Juvin recently joined Sandrine Bertrand as team-leader of the team CPGs (Coordination et Plasticité des Générateurs Spinaux), at INCIA. Associate professor, he’s been working at INCIA since 2011. He’s presenting his team.

In our team, we aim at studying how the mammalian spinal neural networks produce the locomotor activity. We are particularly interested in (1) how the different intra- and extraspinal neuromodulatory influences received by the spinal motor networks could shape the motor output, (2) to assess the plastic properties of these spinal networks and (3) to understand the interactions between spinal motor networks and other neuronal networks engaged during locomotion such as the axial network, the respiratory network and more recently the sympathetic nervous system in charge of the vascular control.

These different points are studied in physiological condition and in pathophysiological situations such as after a spinal cord injury that disconnects the spinal networks from the descending pathways and in a murine model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neurodegenerative disease characterized by the loss of spinal motoneurons.

Finally, we are also interested in the effects that these motor neural networks could undergo during development following maternal exposure to certain potentially toxic substances such as metal nanoparticles (zinc oxide, titanium dioxide).

This domain was the topic of a video (in french) in 2018 :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYZZ-_tq0vM

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Laurent Juvin

Domains :

• Motor systems / Sensori-motor Integrations / Bainstem and Spinal Neural Networks / Nanoparticles

Research axis:

• Impact of perinatal exposure to metallic nanoparticles on SNC development
• Interlimb coordination in mammalian locomotion: role of the spinal neural circuitry
• Pharmacological re-activation of locomotor neural networks following spinal cord injury
• Locomotor-respiratory couplings

Scientific expertise:

• Bainstem and spinal rhythmic activity (respiration, locomotion)
• Development of neural networks engaged in motor functions
• Electrophysiology, neuropharmacology

Publication selection

2020 : Le Gal JP, Colnot E, Cardoit L, Bacqué Cazenave J, Thoby-Brisson M, Juvin L & Morin D, Modulation of respiratory network activity by forelimb and hindlimb locomotor generators. European Journal of Neuroscience.

2018 : Oueghlani Z, Simonnet C, Cardoit L, Courtand G, Cazalets JR, Morin D, Barrière G* & Juvin L*, Brainstem steering of locomotor-like activities in the Newborn rat. Journal of Neuroscience. 38:7725-40

2018 : Nicolosi A, Cardoit L, Pasquereau P, Jaillet C, Thoby-Brisson M, Juvin L* & Morin D*, Acute exposure to zinc oxide nanoparticles critically disrupts operation of the respiratory neural network in neonatal rat. Neurotoxicology. 67:150-60

2016 : Juvin L*, Grätsch S*, Trillaud-Doppia E, Gariépy JF, Büschges A & Dubuc R., A Specific Population of Reticulospinal Neurons Controls the Termination of Locomotion. Cell Rep. 15:2377-86

2010 : Smetana R, Juvin L, Dubuc R & Alford S, A parallel cholinergic brainstem pathway for enhancing locomotor drive. Nature Neuroscience 13:731-738