In psychology and

neuroscience Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, development ...

, motor planning is a set of processes related to the preparation of a movement that occurs during the

reaction time Mental chronometry is the scientific study of processing speed or reaction time on cognitive tasks to infer the content, duration, and temporal sequencing of mental operations. Reaction time (RT; sometimes referred to as "response time") is meas ...

(the time between the presentation of a stimulus to a person and that person's initiation of a motor response). Colloquially, the term applies to any process involved in the preparation of a movement during the reaction time, including perception-related and action-related processes. For example, the identification of a task-relevant stimulus is captured by the usual meaning of the term, "motor planning", but this identification process is not strictly motor-related. Wong and colleagues (2015) have proposed a narrower definition to include only movement-related processes: "Specification of the movement trajectory for the desired action, a description of how the

end-effector In robotics, an end effector is the device at the end of a robotic arm, designed to interact with the environment. The exact nature of this device depends on the application of the robot. In the strict definition, which originates from serial ro ...

will produce such an action, and finally a description of the full set of the joint trajectories or muscle activations required to execute the movement."

History

References

Cognition Neurology Neuroanatomy Aging-associated diseases Ailments of unknown cause Geriatrics Cytoskeletal defects Psychiatric diagnosis {{med-stub