The researchers knew that different gaits — in salamanders and people — are regulated by a part of the brain quite far from conscious control (imagine the agony of everyday walking if it had to be as deliberately planned as a newly learned dance).
And in 2003, the same team found that real salamanders could be made to switch from one gait to another simply by turning up electrical stimulation to a certain brain-stem area. The more stimulation, the faster the walking motion and the faster it wiggles side to side until, at a certain threshold, it would seamlessly switch into a faster, wave-like swimming motion...
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