Search Results

A Few More Thoughts About Feelings: Graded sentience and tail-wagging in dogs

A. D. (Bud) Craig

in How Do You Feel?: An Interoceptive Moment with Your Neurobiological Self

This concluding chapter addresses some of the larger issues relevant to the ideas presented in this book. These issues include the purpose of feelings, the brain structures required in order to ... More

This concluding chapter addresses some of the larger issues relevant to the ideas presented in this book. These issues include the purpose of feelings, the brain structures required in order to experience feelings and which species have them, the kinds of feelings that other species might experience, why feelings seem to propel behavior, and whether Watson—the computer that won the Jeopardy game—might ever experience feelings. The chapter then examines the concept of graded sentience. This concept seems to provide the basis for graded feelings of interoceptive conditions, depending on the level of refinement of the homeostatic motor and sensory systems.Less

Social Implications of Motor Control

Michael S. A. Graziano

in The Intelligent Movement Machine: An Ethological Perspective on the Primate Motor System

This chapter speculates on several points of contact between human social behavior and the control of basic motor repertoire. Topics covered include the relationship between defensive reactions and ... More

This chapter speculates on several points of contact between human social behavior and the control of basic motor repertoire. Topics covered include the relationship between defensive reactions and social displays, the relationship between common arm movements and social gestures, and the link between autism and motor control.Less

Why Are We Conscious? Action without Enaction

Jesse J. Prinz

in The Conscious Brain

Theories differ in how they relate consciousness to action. At one extreme, enactivists argue that perceptual consciousness essential involves motor responses or a representation of motor action. At ... More

Theories differ in how they relate consciousness to action. At one extreme, enactivists argue that perceptual consciousness essential involves motor responses or a representation of motor action. At the other extreme, inactivists argue that systems associated with visually guided action are entirely unconscious. This chapter critically reviews the evidence for both extremes. It argues that motor responses are not necessary for consciousness or even consciously experience. But it also argues against the claim that perception divides into two streams, a conscious stream for recognition and an unconscious stream for action. In place of these views, the chapter argues that action is related to the function of consciousness, rather than the content of consciousness. Conscious states present a menu for action: intermediate-level representations present the world from an action-relevant point of view, and attention allows us to bring such representations into working memory for practical decision making.Less

Neurorehabilitation Robotics and Neuroprosthetics

Robert Riener

in Neuroergonomics: The brain at work

This chapter focuses on the new strategies and devices that can mitigate movement disorders caused by lesions of the central nervous system (CNS), peripheral nervous system (PNS), and the ... More

This chapter focuses on the new strategies and devices that can mitigate movement disorders caused by lesions of the central nervous system (CNS), peripheral nervous system (PNS), and the musculoskeletal system. Topics discussed include pathologies of the human motor system, natural and artificial mechanisms of movement restoration, neurorehabilitation robotics, automated gait-training devices, automated training devices for the upper extremities, and neuroprosthetics.Less

Making circuits dance: neuromodulation of motor systems

Ole Kiehn and Paul S. Katz

in Beyond Neurotransmission: Neuromodulation and its Importance for Information Processing

There are three basic types of movement. Voluntary movements, such as playing the violin or throwing a ball, are purposeful and target-directed and require a complex interplay between lower and ... More

There are three basic types of movement. Voluntary movements, such as playing the violin or throwing a ball, are purposeful and target-directed and require a complex interplay between lower and higher brain structures. Reflexive movements, such as the knee jerk reflex in humans or escape responses in fishes, are responses to external stimuli that are fast, involuntary, and often involve a simple set of muscles. Rhythmic movements, like walking, swimming, or chewing, are automatic and involve repetitive activation of large groups of muscles, in a complex alternating pattern. Complex movements such as dancing probably involve a combination of all three basic types of movement. This chapter focuses on rhythmic movements because more is known about the roles that neuromodulation plays in the production of this class of movements. Many of the generalizations drawn from this research are probably applicable not only to other types of movements, but to non-motor circuits as well.Less

Dealing with Target Motion and Our Own Movement

Gennaro Auletta

in Cognitive Biology: Dealing with Information from Bacteria to Minds

The motor system shows that equivalence classes of motor acts are established in a hierarchical way. This implies the necessity to go further than a pure information acquisition or processing model.

Motor, sensory, and autonomic function: With Charlotte Behan and Roger Barker

James W. Fawcett, Anne E. Rosser, and Stephen B. Dunnett

in Brain Damage, Brain Repair

This chapter concentrates on the anatomical substrate underlying elements of the motor, sensory, and autonomie systems, both within the central and peripheral nervous systems, and explains how this ... More

This chapter concentrates on the anatomical substrate underlying elements of the motor, sensory, and autonomie systems, both within the central and peripheral nervous systems, and explains how this relates to clinical assessment. It then discusses how this clinical assessment is applied as a research tool, in conjunction with supplementary investigations, to quantify the degree and rate of progression of neurological deficits for a number of specific conditions—multiple sclerosis (MS), Parkinson's disease (PD), and Huntington's disease (HD)—and how this can be used to evaluate new therapies.Less

Action mirroring and action understanding: an alternative account

Gergely Csibra

in Sensorimotor Foundations of Higher Cognition

This chapter examines the relation between mirroring and understanding of actions. It challenges the notion that action mirroring is generated by direct matching and serves the function of action ... More

This chapter examines the relation between mirroring and understanding of actions. It challenges the notion that action mirroring is generated by direct matching and serves the function of action understanding in terms of their goals. It argues that action mirroring is generated by action reconstruction via top-down emulation from action interpretation produced outside the motor system and that it does not follow but rather anticipates ongoing actions and enables action coordination with others.Less

Anatomical substrates for movement performance: cerebral cortex and the corticospinal tract

Robert Porter and Roger Lemon

in Corticospinal Function and Voluntary Movement

Although the function of a particular cortical area is determined not so much by its intrinsic structure as by its extrinsic connections, its inputs and outputs, it is important to review the ... More

Although the function of a particular cortical area is determined not so much by its intrinsic structure as by its extrinsic connections, its inputs and outputs, it is important to review the intrinsic structure of the motor cortex with which these inputs, and the determinants of its functions, must interact. Intrinsic networks are available for selection by different inputs and are utilized in the organization of cortical outputs to the multiple sites which receive these projections. This chapter concentrates on the features of the motor cortex which distinguish it from other cortical areas. It describes in detail the sources of the inputs which operate on its intrinsic networks and gives special attention to the organization of its corticofugal outputs. In hierarchical models of mammalian motor systems, the motor cortex, and in particular its corticospinal output, are seen as executive structures. Nevertheless, it is now abundantly clear that the motor cortex is not independent and self-sufficient in these executive functions: it is itself under the influence of a large variety of different inputs, including some originating in the periphery.Less

Synthesis: corticospinal function and voluntary movement

Robert Porter and Roger Lemon

in Corticospinal Function and Voluntary Movement

Studies have established that when compared to lower mammals, two key developments have taken place in the primate motor system. The first is the increasingly important size and role of the motor ... More

Studies have established that when compared to lower mammals, two key developments have taken place in the primate motor system. The first is the increasingly important size and role of the motor areas of the cerebral cortex and their dominance over the enlarged motor output pathways to the spinal cord. The influence of the corticospinal tract increases, in primates, at the expense of other descending pathways, such as the rubrospinal tract. Progressively, in higher mammals, the motor centres of the brain, including the lateral cerebellum and the basal ganglia, address the final common path for movement control through the cerebral cortex and the corticospinal tract, rather than through the brainstem. Descending systems from the brainstem themselves come under increasing cortical control by efferent projections from motor areas of the cerebral cortex. The second major development is the appearance of direct, corticomotoneuronal connections providing monosynaptic linkage between the motor cortex and spinal motoneurones.Less

Muscle activation patterns and joint-angle coordination in multijoint movements

Stan Gielen

in Multisensory Control of Movement

Although human motor performance appears to be remarkably flexible and easy, the underlying neuronal operations are only vaguely understood, even for well-studied eye, head, and arm movements. The ... More

Although human motor performance appears to be remarkably flexible and easy, the underlying neuronal operations are only vaguely understood, even for well-studied eye, head, and arm movements. The same flexibility of the human motor system, which provides animals and man with a large repertoire of motor behavior such as running, eating, and mating, is also one of the obstacles in understanding the basic principles that underlie their motor behavior. Normal motor behavior really needs the complex organization of muscles and joints, and one can certainly not make the general claim that the motor system is redundant. Given the flexibility and the large number of degrees of freedom in the motor system, one might wonder what happens for simple motor tasks such as grasping for a nearby ball. A ball in the same position can be grasped in various ways by different combinations of joint angles in the wrist, elbow, and shoulder. Is the same motor task realized by movements that are randomly chosen from the available repertoire of movements which might do, or is there a consistent reproducible pattern of motor behavior? If the latter is the case, can the constraints that are imposed in order to reproduce the same motor behavior every time when the same motor task is repeated, be understood? This chapter addresses these questions, aiming to give a review of some recent and important experimental data on this topic and to provide a theoretical framework on how to interpret this data.Less

Cognition in Action: A New Look at the Cortical Motor System

Vittorio Gallese and Corrado Sinigaglia

in Agency and Joint Attention

A series of empirical results almost forces us to abandon our reluctance to deal with the intentional aspects of action, at least at the basic level. Neurophysiological evidence shows that the ... More

A series of empirical results almost forces us to abandon our reluctance to deal with the intentional aspects of action, at least at the basic level. Neurophysiological evidence shows that the cortical motor system in nonhuman primates and humans is organized in terms of motor goals and motor intentions rather than mere movements. In this chapter, the authors show how these cognitive functions of the cortical motor system have been assessed by discussing neuroscientific evidence collected during the last two decades both in nonhuman primates and humans. There are five sections to this chapter. The first section addresses the topic of whether and to what extent intentional aspects of motor behavior are encoded in the cortical motor system. The second section investigates the role of motor goal encoding in perceiving and acting upon three-dimensional (3D) objects. The third section highlights the tight relationship between action and space representation. The fourth section deals with the primary ways of making sense of others’ motor behavior. The chapter concludes that the intentional features of actions, at least at a basic level, can only be fully accounted for by the cognitive functions of the cortical motor system. From this definition of intentional action follows a unified neurophysiological explanatory frame for many aspects of our connected relation with the world.Less

Somatosensory and Motor Processes

Joan Stiles, Judy S. Reilly, Susan C. Levine, Doris A. Trauner, and Ruth Nass

in Neural Plasticity and Cognitive Development: Insights from Children with Perinatal Brain Injury

This chapter discusses studies focusing on children with hemiplegic cerebral palsy (CP) of any etiology. Topics covered include motor development after early focal lesions and the emergence of ... More

This chapter discusses studies focusing on children with hemiplegic cerebral palsy (CP) of any etiology. Topics covered include motor development after early focal lesions and the emergence of hemiparesis; the range of motor impairments; anatomical correlates of hemiparesis and motor reorganization; reorganization of the motor system; the range of sensory impairments; sensory-motor interaction; and organization and reorganization of the somatosensory system.Less

From hand actions to speech: evidence and speculations

Luciano Fadiga, Alice Catherine Roy, Patrik Fazio, and Laila Craighero

in Sensorimotor Foundations of Higher Cognition

This chapter reviews experimental evidence and presents new data supporting the idea that human language may have evolved from hand/mouth action representation. Some of the findings include the ... More

This chapter reviews experimental evidence and presents new data supporting the idea that human language may have evolved from hand/mouth action representation. Some of the findings include the discovery that the listener's motor system becomes active as if pronouncing the listened words during speech listening and that hand gestures where the hand is not explicitly visible activate the hand-related mirror neuron system, including Broca's region. This chapter concludes that the property of recursion, considered peculiar to human language, may have been introduced to hand actions by the fabrication of tools.Less

Launching Language: The Gestural Origin of Discrete Infinity

Michael Studdert-Kennedy and Louis Goldstein

in Language Evolution

This chapter points to vocalisation as the basis for language evolution, but focuses on the mechanics involved in producing the sounds of human language. A key pre-adaptation for language was the ... More

This chapter points to vocalisation as the basis for language evolution, but focuses on the mechanics involved in producing the sounds of human language. A key pre-adaptation for language was the evolution of a system in which a limited set of discrete elements could be combined into an unlimited number of different larger units, giving rise to discrete infinity. The ability for vocal language draws on ancient mammalian oral capacities for sucking, licking, chewing, and swallowing. Subsequent evolutionary pressures for more intelligible information exchanges through vocalisations would then have led to a further differentiation of the vocal tract. This resulted in the evolution of six different brain-controlled motor systems to modify the configuration of the vocal tract, comprising the lips, tongue lip, tongue body, tongue root,velum, and the larynx. Different configurations of these discrete systems result in different phonetic gestures. Subsequent expansion, elaboration, and combination of phonetic gestures into larger complex structures would have occurred through processes of cultural evolution involving attunement among speakers through vocal mimicry.Less

How anticipation recruits our motor system: the habitual pragmatic event map revisited

Ricarda I. Schubotz, Claudia Kalinich, and D. Yves von Cramon

in Sensorimotor Foundations of Higher Cognition

This chapter investigates the existence of systematic correspondence between premotor areas and stimulus modality using the present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRi) technique. The results ... More

This chapter investigates the existence of systematic correspondence between premotor areas and stimulus modality using the present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRi) technique. The results show that premotor areas which also control grasping are engaged not only in object but also in visual prediction, while premotor areas which also control vocalization are engaged in rhythmic and auditory prediction. These findings are consistent with previous studies which found that the cortical motor system is also engaged in attention and perception.Less

The neuroanatomy of the mirror neuron system

Stefano Rozzi

in New Frontiers in Mirror Neurons Research

This chapter describes the anatomical and functional organization of the cortical motor system in monkeys and humans, with particular emphasis on the areas involved in the mirror mechanism. The ... More

This chapter describes the anatomical and functional organization of the cortical motor system in monkeys and humans, with particular emphasis on the areas involved in the mirror mechanism. The chapter is divided into three main parts. The first section deals with the general organization of the motor cortex in terms of architectonic structure and anatomical connections. In the second part, a detailed description of the cortical connections of the motor areas containing mirror neurons is provided and anatomic and functional studies are described, indicating the existence in the monkey of distinct mirror networks, each of which is endowed with a specific functional role. In the third part, the anatomical and functional organization of the mirror system humans are outlined, identifying important topics for future studies on the mirror system.Less

Visual Attention and the Attention-Action Interface

John M. Henderson

in Perception

The chapter focuses on the often neglected aspect of the perceptual experience—the impact and effect of the visual process on our attention-action interface. The chapter utilizes studies on eye ... More

The chapter focuses on the often neglected aspect of the perceptual experience—the impact and effect of the visual process on our attention-action interface. The chapter utilizes studies on eye movement control to explore further the linkage between action and perception. A selection function is ascribed to the visual system, which causes an intended motor action to be directed at a specific object within the visual field. This selective capability links the various visual representations with visual processing and motor programming. Succeeding sections explore the concept of visual attention further and its relationship to eye movements, citing studies using the Moving Window Paradigm, the Sequential Attention Model, and Feature Integration Theory. These studies support the theory that visual attention precedes saccadic eye movement to a specific location of a stimulus in the visual field, and enables the motor system to bind the said location with a motor action.Less