MAPEH 1043

OBJECTIVES:
At the end of this module, you are expected to:

a. Define what is motor control and motor learning;

b. Present the effects of the different issues on motor

control and learning to human performance;

c. Select one issue on motor control and learning

and demonstrate its effect of humasn performance
MOTOR CONTROL
process of initiating, directing, and grading purposeful voluntary
movement
GRADUATION SPEECH

in reality, the process of controlling movement begins before the

plan is executed and ends after the muscles have contracted
complex process involving the coordinated contraction of muscles
due to transmission of impulses sent from the motor cortex to its
unit.
it involves the study of behavioral and neuromuscular mechanisms
which produce coordinated movements:
1. While learning a new skill
2. While performing a well learned skill
 How does Motor Control Works?

The task that needs to be completed is identified

Plan is coordinated within the CNS

Sensory feedback supplied to the CNS by the

movement
Levels of Study and Analysis of
Motor Control:
PROCESSIONAL
OBSERVATIONAL ANDS BEHAVIORAL

relation between performance and environment

whether skill was performed accurately and efficiently

BIOMECHANICAL

mechanical and physical basis of movement

NEUROPYSIOLOGICAL AND NEUROANATOMICAL

central nervous system organization and control/coordination of multiple
muscles to produce complex stand simple motor outputs
role of sensory inputs
 CONTROL VS LEARNING
Both areas of study focus on the performance of motor skills
Motor learning and motor control is a field of science that is
being studied from a sports point-of-view.
Motor learning is connected to all the processes and
conditions that affect one's ability to acquire skills, while
motor control ascertains neuromuscular performance of
individuals.
Motor Learning
The process of acquiring a skill by which the learner,
through practice and assimilation, refines and
makes automatic the desired movement.

An internal neurologic process that results in the

ability to produce a new motor task
FACTORS within the individual
that constrain movement:
Cognition
Action
Perception
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF
MOTOR CONTROL
PLATO

viewed self-motion as a sign of immortal soul, which was

apparently inherent to all animals capable of voluntary
movements.
he did not give a definition of "self-motion", but likely he implied all
movements of a living being that could not be expected from an
inanimate object with same mechanical properties given the forces
acting on the body from evironment.
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF
MOTOR CONTROL
ARISTOTLE

the first to pay attention to a distinguishing feature of

biological movement, that is coordination.

according to him, coordination came from the harmony of

the world, as an interaction between the controlling soul and
the environment - a step towards dynamic models of
movements.
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF
MOTOR CONTROL
IVAN PAVLOV

developed a theory of inborn and conditioned reflexes,

according to which all movements represented combinations
of those two groups of reflexes.
new movements emerged as a result of new pathways
through the CNS networks created by repetitive excitation of
the involved neurons.
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF
MOTOR CONTROL
CHARLES SHERRINGTON

founder of contemporary neurophysiology

did not claim that movements represented combinations of

reflexes; rather, according to his theory, movements were
produced by modulation of parameters of reflexes.
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF
MOTOR CONTROL
GRAHAM BROWN

observed locomotion in animals without reflexes and started

a line of research leading eventually to the notion of central
pattern generators (CPGs)
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF
MOTOR CONTROL
NIKOLAI BERSTEIN
argued in favor of motor programs (he called them
"engrams") stored in memory and recalled when a
coordinated movement was required.
the very first book by Bernstein was written in the middle
1930th and contained an argument with Pavlov and his
school.
Computational Issued in Motor
Control
PROCESSIONAL
1. REDUNDANCY 5. NONSTATIONARITY

2. NOISE 6. NONLINEARITY

3. DELAYS

4.UNCERTAINTY
 COORDINATION

- a core motor control issue is coordinating the various

components of the motor system to act in unison to
produce movement.
 1. REFLEXES

in some cases the coordination of motor components is hard-

wired, consisting of fixed neuromuscular pathways that are called
reflexes.
reflexes plays a fundamental role in stabilizing the motor system,
providing almost immediate compensation for small perturbations
and maintaining fixed execution patterns.
simplest reflex is the monosynaptic reflex or short-loop reflexes,
such as monosynaptic stretch response.
polysynaptic reflexes or long-loop reflexes are reflex arc which
involve more than a single synaptic connection in the spinal cord.
2. SYNERGIES

a neural organization of a multi-element system that:

-organizes sharing of a task among a set of elemental variables
-ensures co-variation among elemental variables with the purpose
to stabilize performance variables
synergies are learned, rather than being hardwired like reflexes, and
organized in a task-dependent manner; a synergy is structured for a
particular action and not determined generally for the components
themselves.
synergies are fundamental for controlling complex movements,
such as the ones of the hand during grasping.
3. MOTOR PROGRAM

motor programs are specific, pre-structured motor activation

patterns that are generated and executed by a central controller (in
the case of a biological organism, the brain.)
executed in an open-loop manner, although sensory information is
most likely used to sense the current state of the organism and
determine the appropriate goals.
a generalized motor program is a program for a particular class of
action, rather than a specific movement. This program is
parameterized by the context of the environment and the current
state of the organism.
4. REDUNDANCY

this equivalency in motor action means that there is no one-on-one

correspondnece between the desired movements.

desired movement or action does not have a particular coordination

of neurons, muscles, and kinematics that make it possible.

this motor equivalency problem become know as the degrees of

freedom problem because it is a product of having redundant
degrees of freedom available in the motor system.