Simon A. Sharples, PhD 🇨🇦

Intrinsic mechanisms contributing to the biophysical signature of mouse gamma motoneurons Precise motor control relies on continuous sensory feedback from muscles, a process in which gamma motoneurons play a key role. These specialized spinal neurons innervate intrafusal muscle fibres, mod...

Want to learn more about gamma motoneurons?

Check out our recent preprint from my postdoctoral work in the Miles Lab @uniofstandrews.bsky.social providing insight into how these cells are tuned to support motor function.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Congratulations & welcome to Dr Simon Sharples from cincychildrens.bsky.social‬ who joins us as one of our 2025 Editorial Board Fellows! 🎓 🎉

Just learned that the Sensorimotor Neuroscience (SMN) study section is postponed indefinitely. Over 100 proposals to understand and treat sensorimotor diseases that will not be evaluated or funded. Thousands of hours wasted by writers and reviewers. All due to the Republican block on NIH operation.

Huge thanks to the co-authors from the Whelan and Miles Labs that made this all possible!

We hope this work sparks future research into the cell types driving episodic activity leading to their integration in computational models of the locomotor CPG.

These circuits also influence dorsal horn networks and can be entrained by sensory afferents.

By studying dopamine-elicited episodic rhythmic activity in isolated spinal cords of newborn mice, we found that episode-generating circuits arise from ventral horn interneurons across thoracic, lumbar, and sacral segments.

Locomotor CPGs are known for generating rhythm and pattern, but locomotor behaviors are often episodic. The circuits behind this remain poorly understood.

Episodic rhythmicity is generated by a distributed neural network in the developing mammalian spinal cord Spinal circuits generate locomotor rhythms, but the mechanisms behind episodic locomotor behaviors remain unclear. This study investigated dopamine-in…

🚨 New Research Alert! 🚨

Thrilled to share my final PhD paper—also my first as corresponding author, recently published in @iScience! We investigated spinal circuits that contribute to episodic locomotor activity.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

We've always wondered what V0g's were up to. Now we're a big step closer to knowing! Nice to see this great work out!

If you're interested in spasticity, we've just published a reliable way to optogenetically induce hindlimb spasticity after spinal cord injury. All the credit goes to PhD graduate Sara Goltash and postdoc @alaliberte.bsky.social

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

It's shaping up to be a fantastic summer for motor control meetings.

Registration for the second Motor Circuits Meeting hosted in St Andrews June 17-20 has just opened. Looking forward to catching up with friends and colleagues at the meeting!!

motor-circuits.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/registration/

Really looking forward to this!

🚨 New Research! 🚨

Our new preprint is live on BioRxiv. Check out the link below if you're interested in learning more about how spinal circuits modulate breathing!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...