We have a remarkable ability to perform complex, coordinated movements without much conscious effort. In addition to the computations required to generate commands for muscles, a key aspect of coordinated motor control is incorporating sensory feedback about the movement. One of the most important feedback routes is through proprioception, the...
We perform many movements every day without much deliberation. However, moving can be seen as a form of decision-making since one of many possible movements must be selected and executed. The decision-making processes that underlie movements are influenced by various factors, including sensory perception, energetics, time, perceived rates of failure...
Motor planning is fundamental to the performance of everyday reaching movements. The influence of planning is not limited to voluntary movements but extends to involuntary movements initiated in response to sensory stimuli, such as postural perturbations applied to the arm. Stroke alters voluntary reaching and the involuntary response to perturbations,...
Maneuvering your limbs requires both accurate commands for how to move, and accurate feedback of their true movements. Conventional prosthetic arms currently lack this sense of proprioceptive feedback, which can make daily tasks difficult without close visual monitoring. Although studies have successfully provided artificial proprioceptive feedback to improve control, this...
Neurons are sensitive to the mechanical properties of their environment and show better growth, survival and differentiation when they are cultured in soft environments with mechanical properties similar to those of the brain compared to other tissues. Within the central nervous system (CNS), there is also a range of mechanical...
Decisions in naturalistic environments usually feature delayed and uncertain outcomes that can only be reached after a sequence of actions are performed. For example, canonical stalking and pursuit strategies used by terrestrial predators often involve stages of concealment, pauses where the predator remains motionless, and high speed chase sequences. The...
A one-time, unilateral injury to the developing brain can interrupt the typical process of development and result in motor impairments that evolve over the course of the whole life-span. The timing of injury relative to neural development has implications for the continued refinement of the nervous system and the descending...
Coordinated movement relies on the precise and controlled activation of populations of motor units, which convert the commands of the nervous system into muscle forces. Motor unit firing patterns are often nonlinear and generated through the response to a combination of ionotropic excitatory and inhibitory commands, as well as metabotropic...
The current view in neuroscience holds that the brain, together with its sensory and motor structures and the environment, form a closed-loop system – a sensorimotor loop – in which the brain receives information from the environment and converts it into a motor response while simultaneously making predictions about future...
Persons with spinal cord injuries can use state-of-the-art brain-computer interfaces to control robotic arms. Despite this high-tech solution, their movements are slow and imprecise, much like those made by individuals who have lost proprioception, the sense of body position and movement. Intracortical microstimulation (ICMS) used to reactivate neural circuits in...