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Motor Coordination
In physiology, motor coordination is the orchestrated movement of multiple body parts as required to accomplish intended actions, like walking. This coordination is achieved by adjusting kinematic and kinetic parameters associated with each body part involved in the intended movement. The modifications of these parameters typically relies on sensory feedback from one or more sensory modalities (see multisensory integration), such as proprioception and vision. Properties Large degrees of freedom Goal-directed and coordinated movement of body parts is inherently variable because there are many ways of coordinating body parts to achieve the intended movement goal. This is because the degrees of freedom (DOF) is large for most movements due to the many associated neuro- musculoskeletal elements.Bernstein N. (1967). The Coordination and Regulation of Movements. Pergamon Press. New York. Some examples of non-repeatable movements are when pointing or standing up from sitting. Ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Premotor Cortex
The premotor cortex is an area of the motor cortex lying within the frontal lobe of the brain just anterior to the primary motor cortex. It occupies part of Brodmann's area 6. It has been studied mainly in primates, including monkeys and humans. The functions of the premotor cortex are diverse and not fully understood. It projects directly to the spinal cord and therefore may play a role in the direct control of behavior, with a relative emphasis on the trunk muscles of the body. It may also play a role in planning movement, in the spatial guidance of movement, in the sensory guidance of movement, in understanding the actions of others, and in using abstract rules to perform specific tasks. Different subregions of the premotor cortex have different properties and presumably emphasize different functions. Nerve signals generated in the premotor cortex cause much more complex patterns of movement than the discrete patterns generated in the primary motor cortex. Structure The pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Motor Learning
Motor learning refers broadly to changes in an organism's movements that reflect changes in the structure and function of the nervous system. Motor learning occurs over varying timescales and degrees of complexity: humans learn to walk or talk over the course of years, but continue to adjust to changes in height, weight, strength etc. over their lifetimes. Motor learning enables animals to gain new skills, and improves the smoothness and accuracy of movements, in some cases by calibrating simple movements like reflexes. Motor learning research often considers variables that contribute to motor program formation (i.e., underlying skilled motor behaviour), sensitivity of error-detection processes, and strength of movement schemas (see motor program). Motor learning is "relatively permanent", as the capability to respond appropriately is acquired and retained. Temporary gains in performance during practice or in response to some perturbation are often termed motor adaptation, a trans ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eye–hand Coordination
Hand–eye coordination (also known as eye–hand coordination) is the coordinated motor control of eye movement with hand movement and the processing of visual input to guide reaching and grasping along with the use of proprioception of the hands to guide the eyes, a modality of multisensory integration. Eye–hand coordination has been studied in activities as diverse as the movement of solid objects such as wooden blocks, archery, sporting performance, music reading, computer gaming, copy-typing, and even tea-making. It is part of the mechanisms of performing everyday tasks; in its absence, most people would not be able to carry out even the simplest of actions such as picking up a book from a table. Behaviour and kinematics Neuroscientists have extensively researched human gaze behaviour, noting that the use of the gaze is very task-specific, but that humans typically exhibit proactive control to guide their movement. Usually the eyes fixate on a target before the hands a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central Pattern Generators
Central pattern generators (CPGs) are self-organizing biological neural circuits that produce rhythmic outputs in the absence of rhythmic input. They are the source of the tightly-coupled patterns of neural activity that drive rhythmic and stereotyped motor behaviors like walking, swimming, breathing, or chewing. The ability to function without input from higher brain areas still requires modulatory inputs, and their outputs are not fixed. Flexibility in response to sensory input is a fundamental quality of CPG-driven behavior. To be classified as a rhythmic generator, a CPG requires: # "two or more processes that interact such that each process sequentially increases and decreases, and # that, as a result of this interaction, the system repeatedly returns to its starting condition." CPGs are found in humans and most other vertebrates, and in some invertebrates. Physiology CPG neurons CPG neurons can have different intrinsic membrane properties (see schematic). Some neurons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Power Law
In statistics, a power law is a Function (mathematics), functional relationship between two quantities, where a Relative change and difference, relative change in one quantity results in a relative change in the other quantity proportional to the change raised to a constant exponent: one quantity varies as a power of another. The change is independent of the initial size of those quantities. For instance, the area of a square has a power law relationship with the length of its side, since if the length is doubled, the area is multiplied by 2, while if the length is tripled, the area is multiplied by 3, and so on. Empirical examples The distributions of a wide variety of physical, biological, and human-made phenomena approximately follow a power law over a wide range of magnitudes: these include the sizes of craters on the moon and of solar flares, cloud sizes, the foraging pattern of various species, the sizes of activity patterns of neuronal populations, the frequencies of words ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francesco Lacquaniti
Francesco Lacquaniti is an Italian neurologist and neuroscientist. He received his medical education and completed his Neurology residency at the University of Turin. He is Professor emeritus of Physiology at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, the Director of the Laboratory of Neuromotor Physiology at Santa Lucia Foundation IRCCS Rome, and the President of the Italian Physiological Society. His research focuses on the laws of movement control in humans and other animals (including the two-thirds Power law, see Penmanship, Motor coordination, Affine curvature) and their development in children and alteration after neurological lesions (Developmental coordination disorder). He also studied the neural representation of spatial information in the brain (Brodmann area 5), the neural representation of gravity effects on the body (Mental model A mental model is an internal representation of external reality: that is, a way of representing reality within one's mind. Such models are hyp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tamar Flash
Tamar Flash (Hebrew: תמר פלאש) is an Israeli neuroscientist and control theorist whose research concerns biological motor control, including the motion of the human arm, the effects of neurological damage on motion, and the use of robotics to study biological motion. She holds the Dr. Hymie Moross Professorial Chair in the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science at the Weizmann Institute of Science. Education and career Flash is originally from Ramat Gan. She studied physics at Tel Aviv University, graduating in 1972, and earned a master's degree there in 1976. Beginning in 1978, she studied medical physics and medical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); she completed her Ph.D. there in 1983. After postdoctoral research at MIT, she joined the Weizmann Institute of Science in 1985. There, she held the Corinne S. Koshland Career Development Chair from 1987 to 1991. She was promoted to associate professor in 1991 and to full professor in 1998, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neville Hogan
Neville Hogan is an Irish-American engineer currently the Sun Jae Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and holds honorary doctorates from Delft University of Technology and Dublin Institute of Technology. Hogan’s research is broad and multi-disciplinary, extending from biology to engineering—he has made significant contributions to motor neuroscience, rehabilitation engineering and robotics—but his focus converges on an emerging class of machines designed to cooperate physically with humans. His work pioneered the creation of robots sufficiently gentle to provide physiotherapy to frail and elderly patients recovering from neurological injury such as stroke, a novel therapy that has already proven its clinical significance. Education Hogan graduated in 1970 from the Dublin Institute of Technology with a Bachelors of Engineering. In 1977 he earned a P.h.D from MIT. Awards and honors He received the Rufus Oldenburger Medal The Rufus Ol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central Pattern Generator
Central pattern generators (CPGs) are self-organizing biological neural circuits that produce rhythmic outputs in the absence of rhythmic input. They are the source of the tightly-coupled patterns of neural activity that drive rhythmic and stereotyped motor behaviors like walking, swimming, breathing, or chewing. The ability to function without input from higher brain areas still requires modulatory inputs, and their outputs are not fixed. Flexibility in response to sensory input is a fundamental quality of CPG-driven behavior. To be classified as a rhythmic generator, a CPG requires: # "two or more processes that interact such that each process sequentially increases and decreases, and # that, as a result of this interaction, the system repeatedly returns to its starting condition." CPGs are found in humans and most other vertebrates, and in some invertebrates. Physiology CPG neurons CPG neurons can have different intrinsic membrane properties (see schematic). Some neurons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oscillation
Oscillation is the repetitive or periodic variation, typically in time, of some measure about a central value (often a point of equilibrium) or between two or more different states. Familiar examples of oscillation include a swinging pendulum and alternating current. Oscillations can be used in physics to approximate complex interactions, such as those between atoms. Oscillations occur not only in mechanical systems but also in dynamic systems in virtually every area of science: for example the beating of the human heart (for circulation), business cycles in economics, predator–prey population cycles in ecology, geothermal geysers in geology, vibration of strings in guitar and other string instruments, periodic firing of nerve cells in the brain, and the periodic swelling of Cepheid variable stars in astronomy. The term ''vibration'' is precisely used to describe a mechanical oscillation. Oscillation, especially rapid oscillation, may be an undesirable phenomenon in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cerebellum
The cerebellum (: cerebella or cerebellums; Latin for 'little brain') is a major feature of the hindbrain of all vertebrates. Although usually smaller than the cerebrum, in some animals such as the mormyrid fishes it may be as large as it or even larger. In humans, the cerebellum plays an important role in motor control and cognition, cognitive functions such as attention and language as well as emotion, emotional control such as regulating fear and pleasure responses, but its movement-related functions are the most solidly established. The human cerebellum does not initiate movement, but contributes to motor coordination, coordination, precision, and accurate timing: it receives input from sensory systems of the spinal cord and from other parts of the brain, and integrates these inputs to fine-tune motor activity. Cerebellar damage produces disorders in fine motor skill, fine movement, sense of balance, equilibrium, list of human positions, posture, and motor learning in humans. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
