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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.

Motor Units

Motor Units

A motor unit consists of two main components: a single efferent motor neuron (i.e., a neuron that carries impulses away from the central nervous system) and all of the muscle fibers it innervates. The motor neuron may innervate multiple muscle fibers, which are single cells, but only one motor neuron innervates a single muscle fiber.

Motor Units

Motor Units

The motor unit is a fundamental component of the neuromuscular system and plays a crucial role in coordinating muscle contractions. It consists of a somatic motor neuron, which connects and controls multiple skeletal muscle fibers, forming a single functional segment. The axon of the motor neuron branches out and establishes synaptic connections known as neuromuscular junctions with individual muscle fibers within the motor unit.
Motor units come in different sizes, with smaller units...

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...

Direct Motor Pathways

Direct Motor Pathways

The direct motor pathways, also known as the pyramidal tracts, are a group of neural pathways that originate in the brain and descend through the spinal cord. They control the voluntary movement of the body. There are two major direct motor pathways: the corticospinal and the corticobulbar tracts.
The corticospinal tract is responsible for the voluntary movement of the limbs and trunk. It originates in the cerebral cortex of the brain and descends through the cerebrum's internal capsule and...

Microtubule Associated Motor Proteins

Microtubule Associated Motor Proteins

Eukaryotic cells have different motor proteins for transporting various cargo within the cell. These motor proteins differ based on the filament they associate with, the direction they move within the cell, and the type of cargo they transport. Motor proteins that associate with microtubules are known as microtubule-associated motor proteins. There are two families of microtubule-associated motor proteins —Kinesins and Dyneins. Both these proteins assist in the transport of cellular...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Feb 7, 2026

The "Motor" in Implicit Motor Sequence Learning: A Foot-stepping Serial Reaction Time Task

The "Motor" in Implicit Motor Sequence Learning: A Foot-stepping Serial Reaction Time Task

Published on: May 3, 2018

Motor Learning: A Cortical System for Adaptive Motor Control.

Reza Shadmehr¹

¹Laboratory for Computational Motor Control, Dept. of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.

Current Biology : CB

|July 25, 2018

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Neurons in the frontal and parietal lobes adapt to reach errors. Stimulating these specific neurons corrects motor control, revealing a key cortical system for adaptation.

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Motor Control
Cognitive Neuroscience

Background:

The brain's ability to adjust movements based on errors is crucial for motor learning.
Understanding the neural basis of error correction is essential for treating motor disorders.

Purpose of the Study:

To identify neurons involved in correcting reach errors.
To investigate the role of these neurons in adaptive motor control.

Main Methods:

Electrophysiological recordings in frontal and parietal cortex.
Analysis of neuronal activity during reach tasks with induced errors.
Microstimulation of identified neuronal populations.

Main Results:

Neurons in distinct frontal and parietal areas show directional tuning to reach errors.
Stimulation of these neurons effectively corrected ongoing reach errors.
Evidence for a distributed cortical system underlying adaptive motor control.

Conclusions:

Specific neuronal populations in the frontal and parietal lobes are critical for correcting reach errors.
Targeted stimulation of these neurons can modulate and correct motor output.
This study elucidates a neural mechanism for adaptive motor control.