Search results for "Motor Systems"
showing 10 items of 20 documents
Flexible switching of feedback control mechanisms allows for learning of different task dynamics.
2013
To produce skilled movements, the brain flexibly adapts to different task requirements and movement contexts. Two core abilities underlie this flexibility. First, depending on the task, the motor system must rapidly switch the way it produces motor commands and how it corrects movements online, i.e. it switches between different (feedback) control policies. Second, it must also adapt to environmental changes for different tasks separately. Here we show these two abilities are related. In a bimanual movement task, we show that participants can switch on a movement-by-movement basis between two feedback control policies, depending only on a static visual cue. When this cue indicates that the …
The Temporal Structure of Vertical Arm Movements
2011
Import JabRef | WosArea Life Sciences and Biomedicine - Other Topics; International audience; The present study investigates how the CNS deals with the omnipresent force of gravity during arm motor planning. Previous studies have reported direction-dependent kinematic differences in the vertical plane; notably, acceleration duration was greater during a downward than an upward arm movement. Although the analysis of acceleration and deceleration phases has permitted to explore the integration of gravity force, further investigation is necessary to conclude whether feedforward or feedback control processes are at the origin of this incorporation. We considered that a more detailed analysis of…
''Alterations with Movement Duration in the Kinematics of a Whole Body Pointing Movement''
2013
Casteran, Matthieu | Manckoundia, Patrick | Pozzo, Thierry | Thomas, Elizabeth; International audience; ''Our aim was to investigate how the organization of a whole body movement is altered when movement duration (MD) is varied. Subjects performed the same whole body pointing movement over long, normal and short MDs. The kinematic trajectories were then analyzed on a normalized time base. A principal components analysis (PCA) revealed that the degree of coordination between the elevation angles of the body did not change with MD. This lack of significant differences in the coordination was interesting given that small spatial and temporal differences were observed in the individual kinemati…
Aging Affects the Mental Rotation of Left and Right Hands
2009
BACKGROUND:Normal aging significantly influences motor and cognitive performance. Little is known about age-related changes in action simulation. Here, we investigated the influence of aging on implicit motor imagery. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:Twenty young (mean age: 23.9+/-2.8 years) and nineteen elderly (mean age: 78.3+/-4.5 years) subjects, all right-handed, were required to determine the laterality of hands presented in various positions. To do so, they mentally rotated their hands to match them with the hand-stimuli. We showed that: (1) elderly subjects were affected in their ability to implicitly simulate movements of the upper limbs, especially those requiring the largest amplit…
Neural dynamics of learning sound-action associations.
2008
A motor component is pre-requisite to any communicative act as one must inherently move to communicate. To learn to make a communicative act, the brain must be able to dynamically associate arbitrary percepts to the neural substrate underlying the pre-requisite motor activity. We aimed to investigate whether brain regions involved in complex gestures (ventral pre-motor cortex, Brodmann Area 44) were involved in mediating association between novel abstract auditory stimuli and novel gestural movements. In a functional resonance imaging (fMRI) study we asked participants to learn associations between previously unrelated novel sounds and meaningless gestures inside the scanner. We use functio…
An ensemble analysis of electromyographic activity during whole body pointing with the use of support vector machines.
2011
Import JabRef | WosArea Life Sciences and Biomedicine - Other Topics; International audience; We explored the use of support vector machines (SVM) in order to analyze the ensemble activities of 24 postural and focal muscles recorded during a whole body pointing task. Because of the large number of variables involved in motor control studies, such multivariate methods have much to offer over the standard univariate techniques that are currently employed in the field to detect modifications. The SVM was used to uncover the principle differences underlying several variations of the task. Five variants of the task were used. An unconstrained reaching, two constrained at the focal level and two …
Semaphorin 6A Improves Functional Recovery in Conjunction with Motor Training after Cerebral Ischemia
2010
Stroke is a major health problem in industrialized societies. Despite numerous attempts at developing acute stroke therapies aimed at minimizing acute infarct development, the only approved therapy so far is recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rtPA). In recent years, the attention of the stroke community has therefore also put increased emphasis on understanding processes of post-stroke recovery, and their potential exploitability for therapeutic purposes. The brain has a remarkable ability to adapt to changes after stroke. Mechanisms that contribute to this plasticity are re-mapping and expansion of cortical areas to neighboring regions of functional motor cortex areas after injury […
Muscle Activity and Inactivity Periods during Normal Daily Life
2013
Recent findings suggest that not only the lack of physical activity, but also prolonged times of sedentary behaviour where major locomotor muscles are inactive, significantly increase the risk of chronic diseases. The purpose of this study was to provide details of quadriceps and hamstring muscle inactivity and activity during normal daily life of ordinary people. Eighty-four volunteers (44 females, 40 males, 44.1±17.3 years, 172.3±6.1 cm, 70.1±10.2 kg) were measured during normal daily life using shorts measuring muscle electromyographic (EMG) activity (recording time 11.3±2.0 hours). EMG was normalized to isometric MVC (EMGMVC) during knee flexion and extension, and inactivity threshold o…
Action Representation in Patients with Bilateral Vestibular Impairments
2011
During mental actions subjects feel themselves performing a movement without any corresponding motor output. Although broad information is available regarding the influence of central lesions on action representation, little is known about how peripheral damages affect mental events. In the current study, we investigated whether lack of vestibular information influences action representation. Twelve healthy adults and twelve patients with bilateral vestibular damage actually performed and mentally simulated walking and drawing. The locomotor paths implied one (first walking task) and four (second walking task) changes in the walking direction. In the drawing task, participants drew on a she…
Co-registering kinematics and evoked related potentials during visually guided reach-to-grasp movements.
2013
Background:In non-human primates grasp-related sensorimotor transformations are accomplished in a circuit involving the anterior intraparietal sulcus (area AIP) and both the ventral and the dorsal sectors of the premotor cortex (vPMC and dPMC, respectively). Although a human homologue of such a circuit has been identified, the time course of activation of these cortical areas and how such activity relates to specific kinematic events has yet to be investigated.Methodology/Principal Findings:We combined kinematic and event-related potential techniques to explicitly test how activity within human grasping-related brain areas is modulated in time. Subjects were requested to reach towards and g…