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Feedback responses rapidly scale with the urgency to correct for external perturbations
F Crevecoeur1, I Kurtzer, T Bourke
1Centre for Neuroscience Studies, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada;
Journal of Neurophysiology
|July 5, 2013
Summary
Rapid corrective motor responses adapt to task demands, showing flexibility similar to voluntary actions. Muscle activity scales with urgency, linking rapid responses directly to performance and control.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Motor Control
- Biomechanics
Background:
- Voluntary actions exhibit flexible speed and accuracy.
- The adaptability of rapid corrective responses to perturbations is not well understood.
- Investigating this flexibility could reveal links to voluntary motor control.
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine if rapid corrective responses to mechanical perturbations are flexible.
- To examine how urgency criteria influence muscle activity during corrective responses.
- To link the characteristics of rapid motor responses to behavioral performance.
Main Methods:
- Participants maintained arm position against unpredictable torque perturbations.
- Experiment 1: Explicit urgency manipulated via time limits (300 ms vs. 700 ms).
- Experiment 2: Implicit urgency manipulated by goal target size (varying accuracy demands).
Main Results:
- Muscle responses at ~60 ms scaled with task demands (urgency).
- Strong intertrial correlation found between long-latency responses (~50-100 ms) and movement reversal times.
- Regression slopes indicated sensitivity to experimental conditions in long-latency and early voluntary epochs.
Conclusions:
- Rapid motor responses exhibit flexible scaling of feedback gains based on task-related urgency.
- These findings suggest that rapid corrective responses share flexibility with voluntary control.
- The study highlights the direct link between rapid motor responses and behavioral outcomes.
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