Motor control
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This article is about motor control by humans and other animals. For motor control by machines
and robots, see Motor controller.
Motor control is the regulation of movement in organisms that possess a nervous system. Motor
control includes reflexes[1] as well as directed movement.
To control movement, the nervous system must integrate multimodal sensory information (both
from the external world as well as proprioception) and elicit the necessary signals to recruit
muscles to carry out a goal. This pathway spans many disciplines, including multisensory
integration, signal processing, coordination, biomechanics, and cognition[2][3]. Successful motor
control is crucial to interacting with the world to carry out goals as well as to regulate balance and
stability.
Contents
1Sensorimotor feedback
o 1.1Response to stimuli
o 1.2Closed loop control
o 1.3Open loop control
2Coordination
o 2.1Reflexes
o 2.2Synergies
o 2.3Motor Programs
o 2.4Redundancy
3Perception in Motor Control
o 3.1Model Based Control Strategies
3.1.1Inference and Indirect Perception
3.1.2Forward Models
3.1.3Inverse Models
o 3.2Information Based Control
3.2.1Direct Perception
3.2.2Behavioral Dynamics
4Physiological Basis
o 4.1Motor Units
o 4.2Mechanism and structure
4.2.1Low- and high-threshold
4.2.2Order of recruitment
5See also
6References
7Further reading
o 7.1Research in athletes
Sensorimotor feedback[edit]
Response to stimuli[edit]
The process of becoming aware of a sensory stimuli and using that information to influence an
action occurs in stages. Reaction time of simple tasks can be used to reveal information about
these stages. Reaction time refers to the period of time between when the stimulus is presented,
and the end of the response. Movement time is the time it takes to complete the movement.
Some of the first reaction time experiments were carried out by Franciscus Donders, who used
the difference in response times to a choice task to determine the length of time needed to
process the stimuli and choose the correct response.[4] While this approach is ultimately flawed, it
gave rise to the idea that reaction time was made up of a stimulus identification, followed by a
response selection, and ultimately culminates in carrying out the correct movement. Further
research has provided evidence that these stages do exist, but that the response selection
period of any reaction time increases as the number of available choices grows, a relationship
known as Hick's law.[5]
Closed loop control[edit]
The classical definition of a closed loop system for human movement comes from Jack A. Adams
(1971) :[6]. A reference of the desired output is compared to the actual output via error detection
mechanisms, using feedback, the error is corrected for. Most movements that are carried out
during day-to-day activity are formed using a continual process of accessing sensory information
and using it to more accurately continue the motion. This type of motor control is called feedback
control, as it relies on sensory feedback to control movements. Feedback control is a situated
form of motor control, relying on sensory information about performance and specific sensory
input from the environment in which the movement is carried out. This sensory input, while
processed, does not necessarily cause conscious awareness of the action. Closed loop
control[7] is a feedback based mechanism of motor control, where any act on the environment
creates some sort of change that affects future performance through feedback. Closed loop
motor control is best suited to continuously controlled actions, but does not work quickly enough
for ballistic actions. Ballistic actions are actions that continue to the end without thinking about it,
even when they no longer are appropriate.[citation needed]Because feedback control relies on sensory
information, it is as slow as sensory processing. These movements are subject to a
speed/accuracy trade-off, because sensory processing is being used to control the movement,
the faster the movement is carried out, the less accurate it becomes.
Open loop control[edit]
The classical definition from Jack .A. Adams is:[8] “An open loop system has no feedback or
mechanisms for error regulation. The input events for a system exert their influence, the system
effects its transformation on the input and the system has an output...... A traffic light with fixed
timing snarls traffic when the load is heavy and impedes the flow when the traffic is light. The
system has no compensatory capability.”
Some movements, however, occur too quickly to integrate sensory information, and instead must
rely on feed forward control. Open loop control is a feed forward form of motor control, and is
used to control rapid, ballistic movements that end before any sensory information can be
processed. To best study this type of control, most research focuses on deafferentation studies,
often involving cats or monkeys whose sensory nerves have been disconnected from their spinal
cords. Monkeys who lost all sensory information from their arms resumed normal behavior after
recovering from the deafferentation procedure. Most skills were relearned, but fine motor control
became very difficult.[9] It has been shown that the open loop control can be adapted to different
disease conditions and can therefore be used to extract signatures of different motor disorders
by varying the cost functional governing the system.[10]
Coordination[edit]
A core motor control issue is coordinating the various components of the motor system to act in
unison to produce movement. The motor system is highly complex, composed of many
interacting parts at many different organizational levels
Peripheral neurons receive input from the central nervous system and innervate the muscles. In
turn, muscles generate forces which actuate joints. Getting the pieces to work together is a
challenging problem for the motor system and how this problem is resolved is an active area of
study in motor control research.
