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In class we decided that no one part of the nervous system is “in charge,” but rather, all the different boxes communicate with each other via corollary discharge signals. I suppose having a central control box that signals were sent to would add another step and decrease efficiency, but I wonder what we consider the I-function? Have we not been describing it as some sort of control module? Maybe, though, like all boxes, it just gets information from all the other parts of the nervous system, but it does more with the information it receives… does that make sense?

mcrepeau, that’s a really interesting question about vestigial flight patterns. I wonder what kind of CPGs are genetically transmitted and how they come to be genetically transmitted. We talked a little bit about human walking, but what about swimming? It seems less natural, but is still a skill that many people have- if there’s a culture in which swimming is important and necessary, can that ever become incorporated into the genetic code? How, and how long does it take?