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This study quantifies the dependence of fly walking motor output on specific neural wiring by simulating two Drosophila connectomes and comparing their motor rhythms and antagonist coordination against rewired networks that preserve varying degrees of the original structure. The research finds that while rhythmic motor patterns are generic and emerge even in heavily rewired networks, the precise coordination of antagonistic motor pools, particularly at the thorax-coxa joint, is highly dependent on the specific connectivity. This specificity is traced to the allocation of premotor inputs, demonstrating that coordination, rather than rhythmicity, is the crucial indicator of a connectome's wiring's functional relevance.
Fly walking coordination, not rhythm, is the true signature of specific neural wiring, revealing a critical distinction in how biological circuits achieve complex motor control.
Connectome models of the fly nerve cord generate walking-like motor rhythms, but oscillation alone does not show that the specific wiring matters. Here we provide, to our knowledge, the first test of which features of motor output depend on the specific wiring. We simulated the leg motor systems of two independent Drosophila connectomes, with synapse counts as fixed weights and glutamatergic synapses treated as inhibitory, and compared each with six families of rewired networks that preserve progressively more of its structure, using pre-registered criteria. We find that rhythm is generic but antagonist coordination is not: many rewired networks were more rhythmic than the real ones, yet the real wiring coordinated antagonistic motor pools more strongly than every rewired network, most of all at the thorax--coxa joint. We trace this specificity to how premotor input is allocated between antagonistic pools. Both connectomes carry Sherrington's reciprocal innervation---neurons that excite one pool inhibit its antagonist---and no rewired network does. Reassigning premotor inputs between the pools abolished coordination even when motor neurons'typical input strength changed little (all pre-registered criteria met in one connectome; same direction in the other). Coordination, not rhythm, therefore reveals whether a connectome model's wiring matters.