Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Compensation Mechanisms

Compensation Mechanisms

The human body employs intricate mechanisms to counteract changes in blood pH, preventing conditions like acidosis (pH < 7.35) and alkalosis (pH > 7.45). These compensatory responses aim to restore normal arterial blood pH by engaging respiratory or renal systems, depending on the source of the imbalance.
Respiratory Compensation
This mechanism addresses metabolic-induced pH imbalances by adjusting breathing rates. Respiratory compensation begins within minutes of detecting a pH...

Motor Unit Stimulation

Motor Unit Stimulation

When the neuron of a motor unit fires an action potential, it triggers a series of events, leading to a twitch contraction in the muscle fibers. The process of excitation-contraction coupling is crucial in relaying the action potential to the muscle fibers.
The latent period of contraction marks the onset of excitation-contraction coupling, when the action potential propagates across the sarcolemma, preparing the muscle fibers for contraction. As the fibers enter the contraction phase, the...

Controller Configurations

Controller Configurations

Controller configurations are crucial in a car's cruise control system because they manage speed over time to maintain a consistent pace regardless of road conditions, thereby meeting design goals. In traditional control systems, fixed-configuration design involves predetermined controller placement. System performance modifications are known as compensation.
Control-system compensation involves various configurations, most commonly series or cascade compensation, in which the controller aligns...

Hierarchy of Motor Control

Hierarchy of Motor Control

The hierarchy of motor control refers to the different levels of organization and processing involved in controlling movement in the body. These levels range from higher cortical areas involved in planning and decision-making to lower spinal cord reflexes that respond automatically to external stimuli.

Muscle Stimulation Frequency

Muscle Stimulation Frequency

The contraction strength of muscles is regulated by motor neurons, which modulate the frequency of action potentials dispatched to the motor units based on the body's requirements. This process of varying the muscle stimulation frequency allows muscles to contract with a force that is precisely tailored to the needs of the moment, whether lifting a feather or a heavy box.
Wave summation
At low firing rates, motor neurons induce individual twitch contractions in muscle fibers. These twitches...

Neuroplasticity

Neuroplasticity

Neuroplasticity reflects the brain's remarkable capacity to adapt and evolve, responding dynamically to learning, experiences, or injury by reorganizing its neural circuitry. This reorganization involves creating new neural connections and refining old ones through a series of biological processes that contribute to the brain's lifelong development and adaptability.

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Neck Angle in the Handstand Changes the Pattern of Multi-Joint Variability.

Journal of motor behavior·2025

Same author

Wobble Board Instability Enhances Compensatory CoP Responses to CoM Movement Across Timescales.

Sensors (Basel, Switzerland)·2025

Same author

Dimensions of the functional degrees of freedom of the first serve in tennis.

Journal of sports sciences·2025

Same author

Deficits in recovery of postural stability after stepping are limb- and phase-specific in children with unilateral cerebral palsy.

Gait & posture·2024

Same author

The evolving high bar longswing in elite gymnasts of three age groups.

Journal of sports sciences·2023

Same author

Strength training as a dynamical model of motor learning.

Journal of sports sciences·2023

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 6, 2026

Force and Position Control in Humans - The Role of Augmented Feedback

Force and Position Control in Humans - The Role of Augmented Feedback

Published on: June 19, 2016

Entropy compensation in human motor adaptation.

S Lee Hong¹, Karl M Newell

¹Department of Kinesiology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA. shong1@lsu.edu

Chaos (Woodbury, N.Y.)

|April 2, 2008

Summary

Human motor adaptation conserves entropy by adjusting coordination patterns. Reduced task demands or environmental feedback led to fewer coordination strategies in force output, demonstrating entropy compensation.

Area of Science:

Motor control and biomechanics
Information theory and entropy in biological systems
Human adaptation and learning

Background:

Human motor adaptation is complex, involving adjustments to task demands and environmental feedback.
Understanding motor control dynamics can be approached through the lens of information entropy.
Previous research suggests a link between entropy and the efficiency of biological systems.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the hypothesis that human motor adaptation is an entropy conservation process.
To examine how task demands (error tolerance) and environmental feedback influence motor output entropy.
To characterize the compensation of entropy between the task, organism, and environment during motor tasks.

Main Methods:

Participants performed a two-finger isometric force output task under varying error tolerance and feedback frequency conditions.

More Related Videos

Using a Split-belt Treadmill to Evaluate Generalization of Human Locomotor Adaptation

Using a Split-belt Treadmill to Evaluate Generalization of Human Locomotor Adaptation

Published on: August 23, 2017

WheelCon: A Wheel Control-Based Gaming Platform for Studying Human Sensorimotor Control

WheelCon: A Wheel Control-Based Gaming Platform for Studying Human Sensorimotor Control

Published on: August 15, 2020

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jul 6, 2026

Force and Position Control in Humans - The Role of Augmented Feedback

Force and Position Control in Humans - The Role of Augmented Feedback

Published on: June 19, 2016

Using a Split-belt Treadmill to Evaluate Generalization of Human Locomotor Adaptation

Using a Split-belt Treadmill to Evaluate Generalization of Human Locomotor Adaptation

Published on: August 23, 2017

WheelCon: A Wheel Control-Based Gaming Platform for Studying Human Sensorimotor Control

WheelCon: A Wheel Control-Based Gaming Platform for Studying Human Sensorimotor Control

Published on: August 15, 2020

Information entropy of motor output coordination dynamics (relative phase) was calculated.

Conditional entropy was analyzed in relation to task and environmental entropy.

Main Results:

Conditional entropy of motor output decreased as error tolerance and feedback frequency were reduced.
Lower task demands (increased task entropy) and reduced environmental information (increased environmental entropy) led to fewer coordination patterns.
This suggests a compensatory relationship between different sources of entropy.

Conclusions:

Human motor adaptation can be characterized by entropy conservation principles.
The motor system adjusts its coordination strategies to maintain functional entropy balance.
Findings support the view that motor learning involves optimizing entropy exchange between the organism and its environment.