Referent control of action and perception (eBook)

Dr. Anatol Feldman is one of the world’s foremost neuroscientists in the area of motor control. His work has had a strong and sustained influence in behavioral neuroscience since the 1960’s when he published a unique theory of motor control, called the equilibrium-point hypothesis He has been a professor in the Department of Physiology (now Neuroscience) at the University of Montreal since 1990. After having been denied the right to travel out of the USSR for 25 years, he was granted permission to attend a neuroscience meeting as a distinguished Keynote Speaker in Ontario in 1988. He returned to Canada as a visiting professor at McGill University in 1989. In 1997, he joined the Centre de recherche en sciences neurologiques (CRSN) in the Department of Neuroscience at the Université de Montréal. His laboratories are affiliated with the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Rehabilitation of Greater Montreal (CRIR). He is the first recipient of the Nicolai Bernstein award from the International Society of Motor Control.

Preamble: The meaning of the term referent control  Chapter 1. Running away from KGB informers to neuroscience            1.1 Switching from physics to neuroscience            1.2 Moscow Biological School Chapter 2. Action and perception in the context of physical laws             2.1 The purpose of scientific inquiry about action and perception 2.2 Harmonizing motor actions with physical laws                        a. Law-constrained variables and parameters of physical laws                        b. Harmonizing control of actions with physical laws 2.3 Parametric control of posture and movement  2.4 Remarkable features of parametric control 2.5 Questioning the validity of efference copy concept for motor control              2.6 A historically perpetuated error in thinking about how motor actions are controlled              2.7 Perception in the context of physical laws Chapter 3. Referent control as a specific form of parametric control of actions: Empirical demonstrations 3.1 Earlier demonstrations of referent control in humans3.2 Referent control of actions in animalsa. Control of spatial thresholds of reflexes: Matthews’ (1959) experimentsb. Descending brain systems control spatial thresholds for muscle activation c. Neither central, nor afferent influences per se pre-determine motor commands to musclesd. Is referent control compatible with results of deafferentation?  3.3 Referent control underlies both slow and fast movementsa. Threshold position resetting: A fundamental control principle underlying both slow and fast movementsb. Changes in the referent arm configuration underlie arm reaching movement            3.4 Shifts in the referent position of body segments result in motor action3.5 Referent control of actions by the corticospinal system in humans a. Intentional changes in the wrist joint angleb. Corticospinal influences during the unloading reflex3.6 The motoneuronal pool in the context of referent controla. Spatial recruitment of motoneurons                        b. The range of threshold position controlc. Muscle activation in dynamics3.7 Neurological motor disorders resulting from deficits of referent control3.8 Referent control of agonist and antagonist muscles3.9 Other dynamic aspects of referent controla.       What comes first – muscle activation or shifts in the equilibrium point?b. Gradual shifts in the equilibrium state:  Importance for regulation of    movement extent, speed, duration and rapid action sequences c. Threshold control as an optimal control of actions.3.10 Major departures from conventional views on motor controla. Descending systems influence but do not pre-determine motor commands or kinematics.b. The first clue to how the nervous system solves redundancy problems Chapter 4. Physiological origin and feed-forward nature of referent control                              4.1 Physiological origin of referent (threshold position) control4.2 Taking advantage of feed-forward nature of referent control during motor learninga.       Feed-forward setting of spatial threshold in anticipation of perturbation (TMS studies) b.      Further implications of feed-forward nature of referent control Chapter 5. Different forms of referent control                         5.1 Physiological origin of multiple forms of referent control                                    a. The Basic Neurophysiological Rule                                    b. The referent body configuration                                    c. The referent coactivation commandd. The referent body location in the environmente. The referent body orientation relative to gravity directionf.  Other forms of referent control              5.2 Referent control of motionless actionsa.       Grip force productionb.      Pushing against a wall  5.3 Referent control of movementsa.   Vertical jumpsb.   Sit-to-stand movements 5.4 Arm reaching movementsa.       Referent, equilibrium and actual hand trajectoriesb.      Adaptation of reaching movements to gravity: A possible role of proprioceptionc.       Referent corrections of reaching movements: Feed-forward aspects             5.5 Referents as attributes of neuro-physical, rather than symbolic, frames of reference                        a.   Physical versus mathematical frames of reference                        b.   Transitions from one to another frame of reference 5.6 Optimality of actions in the context of referent control 5.7 Synergies in the context of referent control  5.8 Testing the principle of biomechanical correspondence  Chapter 6. Solutions to classical problems in the control of motor actions  6.1 Mechanical reductionism in behavioral neuroscience  6.2 The posture-movement problem            a. Converting posture-stabilizing to movement-producing mechanisms            b. Referent control of muscle coactivation in the context of the posture-movement relationship 6.3 Intentional choice of position or isometric torque  6.4 Central pattern generators in the context of referent controla.       A major problem of the existing CPG conceptb.      Integration of central and afferent signals in normal conditionsc.       Re-defining the CPG concept d.      Resetting of spatial thresholds versus gating of reflexese.       Control of posture and gait may not rely on internal representations of the center of body mass or base of support6.5 Sherrington’s versus Graham-Brown’s views on sensorimotor integration: A contest without a winner 6.6 The relationship between postural and gait stabilitya. Human gait remains stable at every instanceb. Posture and movement are stabilized by common mechanismsc. Referent control in the context of the dynamic systems theory6.7 Testing some aspects of referent control of human gaita. Permanent phase resetting of gait rhythm in response to perturbationb. Minimization of activity of leg muscles at specific phases of gait 6.8 Referent control of body shape and swimming in lampreys6.9 More about stability of posture and movementa. Referent control ensures stability of posture and movement despite   electromechanical and reflex delaysb. Typical errors in evaluations of stiffness and dampingc. Movement equifinality and its violations in the context of referent controld. Effects of Coriolis force as evidence that no internal models of force fields are         built during motor learning  Chapter 7.  Redundancy problems             7.1 Fundamental role of the environment in solving redundancy problems            7.2 Multi-muscle control without redundancy problems            7.3 Control of reaching movements without redundancy problems                        a. Possible neural basis of referent control of reachingb. The minimization principle and rank-ordered timing of different forms of referent control involved in reaching            Reaching within arm’s reach            Reaching beyond arm’s reach            Reach-to-grasp movementsc.       Other approaches to redundancy problems7.4 From intention to action: The mapping problem, its solution and relation to              redundancy problems7.5 Visio-control mapping for locomotion7.6 Learning, memory and physical properties of the environment in referent controlChapter 8. Action-perception coupling             8.1 Position sense and sense of effort                        a. Position sense rule                        b. Position sense in different conditions                                    Involuntary changes in position (the unloading reflex). Isotonic motionIsometric torque productionOther motor actions                         c. Kinesthetic illusions elicited by tendon vibration d. Phantom limb phenomenon and mirror therapy for phantom limb pain e. Kinesthetic illusions resulting from electrical brain stimulation (phantom person and awareness of motion)f. Position sense and sense of effort                         g. Predictive nature of the position sense rule 8.2  The referent body configuration as a basis for the body schema8.3  Reaching different body spots in humans and spinal frogs8.4  Information transmitted by ascending pathways to the brain8.5   Referent control of eye movementsa.       Referent control of gazeb.      Controversies about the existence of stretch reflexes in external ocular musclesc.       Referent control of pursuit and saccadic eye movementsPursuit eye movementsSaccadic eye movementsThree-dimensional saccadesd.      Questioning the feasibility of the pulse-step model for motor control8.6              Visual constancy8.7              Referent control of optomotor behaviors in insectsa. Referent control of body turnsb. The optomotor reflexc. Self-initiated body turnsa.   Visual constancy  Chapter 9. Afterword, major lessons and perspectives