The cellular mechanisms underlying embryonic motility were investigated using intracellular recording from motoneurons and electrotonic recording from muscle nerves during motor activity generated by an isolated spinal cord preparation of 12- to 15-d-old chick embryos. DC-coupled recordings from sartorius (a flexor) and femorotibialis (an extensor) muscle nerves revealed that both sets of motoneurons were depolarized at the same time in each cycle even when the motoneurons fired out of phase. Sartorius motoneurons fired briefly on the rising phase of the depolarization and then stopped firing before discharging a second burst of spikes as the depolarization decayed. By contrast, femorotibialis motoneurons fired at the peak of their depolarization, which was coincident with the interruption in sartorius activity. Intracellular recordings from antidromically identified motoneurons confirmed that flexor and extensor motoneurons were depolarized at the same time during each cycle of activity. The discharge of femorotibialis motoneurons, and others presumed to be extensors, followed changes in membrane potential so that maximal firing occurred during peak depolarization. The relationship between discharge and membrane potential was different in sartorius motoneurons (and in others presumed to be flexors) because they fired briefly on the rising phase of the depolarization and then stopped firing during peak depolarization. In some of these cells firing resumed as the membrane potential decayed back to rest. Intracellular injection of depolarizing current into sartorius motoneurons during motor activity reversed the direction of the membrane potential change from depolarizing to hyperpolarizing during the pause in sartorius discharge. In addition, the discharge evoked by the depolarizing current was blocked during the reversed part of the synaptic potential revealing its inhibitory nature. The occurrence of the IPSP was accompanied by a large reduction in motoneuronal input impedance. Injection of depolarizing current steps into motoneurons produced steady firing with no evidence of a pause in discharge, indicating that the depolarization accompanying synaptic activity was not responsible for the pause in firing of flexor motoneurons. These results suggest that flexor and extensor motoneurons receive a similar depolarizing drive from a common set of excitatory premotor interneurons. The alternating pattern of flexor and extensor discharge is produced, in part, by the timing of a depolarizing IPSP coincident with extensor activity that silences flexor discharge.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)