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A Functional Taxonomy of Bottom-Up Sensory Feedback Processing for Motor Actions
1Centre for Neuroscience Studies, Department of Biomedical and Molecular Sciences, and Department of Medicine, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, Canada.
Trends in Neurosciences
|July 6, 2016
Summary
Humans use sensory feedback to guide voluntary movements, with distinct timing patterns revealing a hierarchical motor control system. This feedback blurs the line between reflexes and intentional actions.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Motor Control
- Sensory Feedback
Background:
- Human voluntary motor actions involve both intention and sensory feedback.
- Sensory feedback is crucial for selecting and guiding motor actions.
- The interplay between top-down intention and bottom-up feedback defines voluntary control.
Purpose of the Study:
- To classify the diverse roles of sensory feedback in the motor system.
- To analyze the temporal regularities of motor responses to sensory stimuli.
- To elucidate the functional hierarchical organization of motor control.
Main Methods:
- Literature review of sensory feedback mechanisms in motor control.
- Analysis of response timing across different classes of motor actions.
- Classification of sensory feedback utilization in goal-directed movements.
Main Results:
- Identified distinct categories for sensory feedback use in motor control.
- Revealed regularities in the timing of motor responses to sensory stimuli.
- Demonstrated a functional hierarchy in motor control based on feedback utilization.
Conclusions:
- Sensory feedback plays a critical, hierarchically organized role in voluntary motor control.
- The automatic integration of feedback in goal-directed actions challenges simple distinctions between reflexes and voluntary acts.
- Understanding feedback timing is key to deciphering motor control mechanisms.
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