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Journal of Comparative Physiology. A,... Jan 2017Precision of motor commands is highly relevant in a large context of various locomotor behaviors, including stabilization of body posture, heading control and directed... (Review)
Review
Precision of motor commands is highly relevant in a large context of various locomotor behaviors, including stabilization of body posture, heading control and directed escape responses. While posture stability and heading control in walking and swimming animals benefit from high friction via ground reaction forces and elevated viscosity of water, respectively, flying animals have to cope with comparatively little aerodynamic friction on body and wings. Although low frictional damping in flight is the key to the extraordinary aerial performance and agility of flying birds, bats and insects, it challenges these animals with extraordinary demands on sensory integration and motor precision. Our review focuses on the dynamic precision with which Drosophila activates its flight muscular system during maneuvering flight, considering relevant studies on neural and muscular mechanisms of thoracic propulsion. In particular, we tackle the precision with which flies adjust power output of asynchronous power muscles and synchronous flight control muscles by monitoring muscle calcium and spike timing within the stroke cycle. A substantial proportion of the review is engaged in the significance of visual and proprioceptive feedback loops for wing motion control including sensory integration at the cellular level. We highlight that sensory feedback is the basis for precise heading control and body stability in flies.
Topics: Animals; Drosophila; Feedback, Sensory; Flight, Animal; Muscles; Neurons; Wings, Animal
PubMed: 27942807
DOI: 10.1007/s00359-016-1133-9 -
Nature Communications Oct 2016Early stages of sensorimotor system development in mammals are characterized by the occurrence of spontaneous movements. Whether and how these movements support...
Early stages of sensorimotor system development in mammals are characterized by the occurrence of spontaneous movements. Whether and how these movements support correlated activity in developing sensorimotor spinal cord circuits remains unknown. Here we show highly correlated activity in sensory and motor zones in the spinal cord of neonatal rats in vivo. Both during twitches and complex movements, movement-generating bursts in motor zones are followed by bursts in sensory zones. Deafferentation does not affect activity in motor zones and movements, but profoundly suppresses activity bursts in sensory laminae and results in sensorimotor uncoupling, implying a primary role of sensory feedback in sensorimotor synchronization. This is further supported by largely dissociated activity in sensory and motor zones observed in the isolated spinal cord in vitro. Thus, sensory feedback resulting from spontaneous movements is instrumental for coordination of activity in developing sensorimotor spinal cord circuits.
Topics: Animals; Animals, Newborn; Feedback, Sensory; Female; Male; Motor Activity; Motor Neurons; Rats; Rats, Wistar; Sensory Receptor Cells; Spinal Cord
PubMed: 27713428
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms13060 -
Med (New York, N.Y.) Aug 2021Neuroprosthetics is a discipline that aims at restoring lost functions to people affected by a variety of neurological disorders or neurotraumatic lesions. It combines... (Review)
Review
Neuroprosthetics is a discipline that aims at restoring lost functions to people affected by a variety of neurological disorders or neurotraumatic lesions. It combines the expertise of computer science and electrical, mechanical, and micro/nanotechnology with cellular, molecular, and systems neuroscience. Rapid breakthroughs in the field during the past decade have brought the hope that neuroprostheses can soon become a clinical reality, in particular-as we will detail in this review-for the restoration of hand functions. We argue that any neuroprosthesis relies on a set of hardware and algorithmic building elements that we call the neurotechnological modules (NTs) used for motor decoding, movement restoration, or sensory feedback. We will show how the modular approach is already present in current neuroprosthetic solutions and how we can further exploit it to imagine the next generation of neuroprosthetics for sensory-motor restoration.
Topics: Feedback, Sensory; Humans; Movement; Neural Prostheses; Upper Extremity
PubMed: 35590168
DOI: 10.1016/j.medj.2021.05.002 -
Current Biology : CB Mar 2024It is widely recognized that sensorimotor adaptation is facilitated when feedback is provided throughout the movement compared with when it is provided at the end of the...
It is widely recognized that sensorimotor adaptation is facilitated when feedback is provided throughout the movement compared with when it is provided at the end of the movement. However, the source of this advantage is unclear: continuous feedback is more ecological, dynamic, and available earlier than endpoint feedback. Here, we assess the relative merits of these factors using a method that allows us to manipulate feedback timing independent of actual hand position. By manipulating the onset time of "endpoint" feedback, we found that adaptation was modulated in a non-monotonic manner, with the peak of the function occurring in advance of the hand reaching the target. Moreover, at this optimal time, learning was of similar magnitude as that observed with continuous feedback. By varying movement duration, we demonstrate that this optimal time occurs at a relatively fixed time after movement onset, an interval we hypothesize corresponds to when the comparison of the sensory prediction and feedback generates the strongest error signal.
Topics: Feedback; Psychomotor Performance; Feedback, Sensory; Adaptation, Physiological; Learning; Movement
PubMed: 38402615
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.01.073 -
Psychological Research Apr 2019Auditory feedback of actions provides additional information about the timing of one's own actions and those of others. However, little is known about how musicians and...
Auditory feedback of actions provides additional information about the timing of one's own actions and those of others. However, little is known about how musicians and nonmusicians integrate auditory feedback from multiple sources to regulate their own timing or to (intentionally or unintentionally) coordinate with a partner. We examined how musical expertise modulates the role of auditory feedback in a two-person synchronization-continuation tapping task. Pairs of individuals were instructed to tap at a rate indicated by an initial metronome cue in all four auditory feedback conditions: no feedback, self-feedback (cannot hear their partner), other feedback (cannot hear themselves), or full feedback (both self and other). Participants within a pair were either both musically trained (musicians), both untrained (nonmusicians), or one musically trained and one untrained (mixed). Results demonstrated that all three pair types spontaneously synchronized with their partner when receiving other or full feedback. Moreover, all pair types were better at maintaining the metronome rate with self-feedback than with no feedback. Musician pairs better maintained the metronome rate when receiving other feedback than when receiving no feedback; in contrast, nonmusician pairs were worse when receiving other or full feedback compared to no feedback. Both members of mixed pairs maintained the metronome rate better in the other and full feedback conditions than in the no feedback condition, similar to musician pairs. Overall, nonmusicians benefited from musicians' expertise without negatively influencing musicians' ability to maintain the tapping rate. One implication is that nonmusicians may improve their beat-keeping abilities by performing tasks with musically skilled individuals.
Topics: Acoustic Stimulation; Adolescent; Adult; Auditory Perception; Feedback, Sensory; Female; Humans; Joints; Male; Motor Skills; Music; Young Adult
PubMed: 30805705
DOI: 10.1007/s00426-019-01156-8 -
Biological Psychiatry. Cognitive... Sep 2019Interactions between motor systems and sensory processing are ubiquitous throughout the animal kingdom and play an important role in many sensorimotor behaviors,... (Review)
Review
Interactions between motor systems and sensory processing are ubiquitous throughout the animal kingdom and play an important role in many sensorimotor behaviors, including both human speech and animal vocalization. During vocal production, the auditory system plays important roles in both encoding feedback of produced sounds, allowing one to self-monitor for vocal errors, and simultaneously maintaining sensitivity to the outside acoustic environment. Supporting these roles is an efferent motor-to-sensory signal known as a corollary discharge. This review summarizes recent work on the role of such signaling during vocalization in the marmoset monkey, a nonhuman primate model of social vocal communication.
Topics: Animals; Auditory Cortex; Auditory Perception; Callithrix; Electrophysiological Phenomena; Feedback, Sensory; Motor Activity; Vocalization, Animal
PubMed: 31420219
DOI: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2019.06.008 -
Biological Psychiatry. Cognitive... Sep 2019The cerebellum is known to make movements fast, smooth, and accurate. Many hypotheses emphasize the role of the cerebellum in computing learned predictions important for... (Review)
Review
The cerebellum is known to make movements fast, smooth, and accurate. Many hypotheses emphasize the role of the cerebellum in computing learned predictions important for sensorimotor calibration and feedforward control of movements. Hypotheses of the computations performed by the cerebellum in service of motor control borrow heavily from control systems theory, with models that frequently invoke copies of motor commands, called corollary discharge. This review describes evidence for corollary discharge inputs to the cerebellum and highlights the hypothesized roles for this information in cerebellar motor-related computations. Insights into the role of corollary discharge in motor control, described here, are intended to inform the exciting but still untested roles of corollary discharge in cognition, perception, and thought control relevant in psychiatric disorders.
Topics: Cerebellum; Electrophysiological Phenomena; Feedback, Sensory; Humans; Motor Activity
PubMed: 31230918
DOI: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2019.04.010 -
Biological Psychiatry. Cognitive... Sep 2019The strategy of integrating motor signals with sensory information during voluntary behavior is a general feature of sensory processing. It is required to distinguish... (Review)
Review
The strategy of integrating motor signals with sensory information during voluntary behavior is a general feature of sensory processing. It is required to distinguish externally applied (exafferent) from self-generated (reafferent) sensory inputs. This distinction, in turn, underlies our ability to achieve both perceptual stability and accurate motor control during everyday activities. In this review, we consider the results of recent experiments that have provided circuit-level insight into how motor-related inputs to sensory areas selectively cancel self-generated sensory inputs during active behaviors. These studies have revealed both common strategies and important differences across systems. Sensory reafference is suppressed at the earliest stages of central processing in the somatosensory, vestibular, and auditory systems, with the cerebellum and cerebellum-like structures playing key roles. Furthermore, motor-related inputs can also suppress reafferent responses at higher levels of processing such as the cortex-a strategy preferentially used in visual processing. These recent findings have important implications for understanding how the brain achieves the flexibility required to continuously calibrate relationships between motor signals and the resultant sensory feedback, a computation necessary for our subjective awareness that we control both our actions and their sensory consequences.
Topics: Brain; Cerebellum; Feedback, Sensory; Humans; Models, Neurological; Perception; Psychomotor Performance
PubMed: 31401034
DOI: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2019.06.003 -
Current Opinion in Neurobiology Apr 2012Auditory experience is critical for the acquisition and maintenance of learned vocalizations in both humans and songbirds. Despite the central role of auditory feedback... (Review)
Review
Auditory experience is critical for the acquisition and maintenance of learned vocalizations in both humans and songbirds. Despite the central role of auditory feedback in vocal learning and maintenance, where and how auditory feedback affects neural circuits important to vocal control remain poorly understood. Recent studies of singing birds have uncovered neural mechanisms by which feedback perturbations affect vocal plasticity and also have identified feedback-sensitive neurons at or near sites of auditory and vocal motor interaction. Additionally, recent studies in marmosets have underscored that even in the absence of vocal learning, vocalization remains flexible in the face of changing acoustical environments, pointing to rapid interactions between auditory and vocal motor systems. Finally, recent studies show that a juvenile songbird's initial auditory experience of a song model has long-lasting effects on sensorimotor neurons important to vocalization, shedding light on how auditory memories and feedback interact to guide vocal learning.
Topics: Animals; Auditory Perception; Brain; Feedback, Sensory; Humans; Learning; Neural Pathways; Neuronal Plasticity; Neurons; Speech; Vocalization, Animal
PubMed: 22137567
DOI: 10.1016/j.conb.2011.11.006 -
Proceedings of the National Academy of... May 2022The ability to sample sensory information with our hands is crucial for smooth and efficient interactions with the world. Despite this important role of touch, tactile...
The ability to sample sensory information with our hands is crucial for smooth and efficient interactions with the world. Despite this important role of touch, tactile sensations on a moving hand are perceived weaker than when presented on the same but stationary hand. This phenomenon of tactile suppression has been explained by predictive mechanisms, such as internal forward models, that estimate future sensory states of the body on the basis of the motor command and suppress the associated predicted sensory feedback. The origins of tactile suppression have sparked a lot of debate, with contemporary accounts claiming that suppression is independent of sensorimotor predictions and is instead due to an unspecific mechanism. Here, we target this debate and provide evidence for specific tactile suppression due to precise sensorimotor predictions. Participants stroked with their finger over textured objects that caused predictable vibrotactile feedback signals on that finger. Shortly before touching the texture, we probed tactile suppression by applying external vibrotactile probes on the moving finger that either matched or mismatched the frequency generated by the stroking movement along the texture. We found stronger suppression of the probes that matched the predicted sensory feedback. These results show that tactile suppression is specifically tuned to the predicted sensory states of a movement.
Topics: Feedback, Sensory; Hand; Humans; Movement; Touch; Touch Perception
PubMed: 35533281
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2118445119