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Salil Bidaye

@salilbidaye.bsky.social
211 followers 317 following 24 posts

Neuroscientist, Research Group Leader @mpfneuro.bsky.social interested in how animals move, especially if they have 6 legs. Formerly @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social @impvienna.bsky.social mpfi.org/our-labs/bidaye-lab

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Salil Bidaye @salilbidaye.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
Most importantly, we used a kinematics-guided connectome search to isolate candidate circuits. We found leg-specific CPGs and inter-leg coupling motifs to explain the kinematics data. Check the preprint for these cool motifs too heavy for uploading. Here's one motif for let-right alternation.
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Salil Bidaye @salilbidaye.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
We could also find ways to slow down and speed up the stepping rhythm (co-activate multiple DNs!) and in doing so ended up discovering a new mechanism for acceleration which for obvious reasons we call as a front-wheel-drive (FWD) mechanism.
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Salil Bidaye @salilbidaye.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
We then looked at inter-leg coordination. Remarkably DNg100 drove the 6 legs to step with amazing inter-leg coordination. See the tripod like stepping even in highly proprioception deficient animals (headless fly with tiny stumps for legs!). Other neurons like MDN do not drive inter-leg coupling!
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Salil Bidaye @salilbidaye.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
3D leg kinematics allows us to analyze the nitty-gritties of every stepping leg and we could see how proprioception shapes centrally generated smooth sinusoidal-like kinematics into structured “real-steps” with a stance and swing period.
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Salil Bidaye @salilbidaye.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
Here’s our latest preprint on uncovering neural control of a coordinated walking pattern! doi.org/10.64898/202... (author-list jumbled, see pdf for corrected). Video shows the central paradigm in this study, we optogenetically induce walking in headless flies and sequentially reduce proprioception.
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