Introduction • What Is Motor Control? • Studying the nature of movement and how movement is controlled • Ability to regulate or direct the mechanisms essential to movement
Introduction • Why Should Therapists Study Motor Control? • Physical and occupational therapists: applied motor control physiologists • Understanding motor control and nature and control of normal and abnormal movement critical to clinical practice
Understanding the Nature of Movement • Individual Systems Underlying Motor Control • Motor/Actions Systems: neuromuscular and biomechanical systems • Study of motor systems that control functional movement
Understanding the Nature of Movement • Individual Systems Underlying Motor Control • Sensory/Perceptual Systems • Essential to control of functional movement • Perception: integration of sensory impressions into psychologically meaningful information • Provide information about state of the body • Integral to ability to act effectively within an environment
Understanding the Nature of Movement • Individual Systems Underlying Motor Control • Cognitive Systems • Essential to motor control • Attention, planning, problem solving, motivation, and emotional aspects of motor control that underlie establishment of intent or goals
Understanding the Nature of Movement • Task Constraints on Movement Control • Type of task performed has great impact on neural organization of movement • Open movement: adapt movement strategies to constantly changing and unpredictable environment • Closed movement: relatively fixed or predictable environments
Understanding the Nature of Movement • Environmental Constraints on Movement Control • CNS consideration of attributes of environment when planning task- specific movements • Regulatory features: aspects of environment that shape movement itself • Nonregulatory: features of environment may affect performance, but movement does not have to conform to these features
The Control of Movement: Theories of Motor Control • Theory of Motor Control • Group of abstract ideas about control of movement • Theory • Set of interconnected statements that describe unobservable structures or processes and relate them to each other and to observable events
The Control of Movement: Theories of Motor Control • Value of Theory to Practice • Framework for interpreting behavior • Guide for clinical action • New ideas • Working hypotheses for examination and intervention
The Control of Movement: Theories of Motor Control • Reflex Theory • Sir Charles Sherrington: complex behavior explained through combined action of individual reflexes chained together • Structure of a reflex: receptor, conductor, effector
The Control of Movement: Theories of Motor Control • Reflex Theory • Limitations • Reflex activated by outside agent • Does not explain and predict movement that occurs in absence of sensory stimulus • Does not explain fast movements • Fails to explain single stimulus can result in varying responses • Does not explain ability to produce novel movements
The Control of Movement: Theories of Motor Control • Reflex Theory • Clinical Implications • Strategies to test reflexes should allow therapists to predict function • Patient’s movement behaviors interpreted in terms of presence or absence of controlling reflexes • Enhancing or reducing effect of reflexes during motor tasks
The Control of Movement: Theories of Motor Control • Hierarchical Theory • Organizational control top down; each successively higher level exerts control over level below it • Vertical hierarchy: lines of control do not cross; never bottom-up control
The Control of Movement: Theories of Motor Control • Hierarchical Theory • Limitations • Cannot explain dominance of reflex behavior in certain situations in normal adults • Clinical Implications • Explain disordered motor control in patients with neurologic disorders
The Control of Movement: Theories of Motor Control • Motor Programming Theories • If motor response is removed from its stimulus, it’s left with concept of central motor pattern • Central motor pattern (motor program): more flexible than concept of a reflex; activated by sensory stimuli or central processes
The Control of Movement: Theories of Motor Control • Motor Programming Theories • Limitations • Cannot be considered sole determinant of action • Clinical Implications • Allowed clinicians to move beyond reflex explanation for disordered motor control • Retraining movements important to functional task, not just on reeducating specific muscles in isolation
The Control of Movement: Theories of Motor Control • System Theories • Bernstein: you cannot understand neural control of movement without understanding of system you are moving and the external and internal forces acting on the body • Coordination of movement: process of mastering redundant degrees of freedom of moving organism
The Control of Movement: Theories of Motor Control • System Theories • Bernstein: synergies play role in solving degrees of freedom problem • Principle of abundance: synergies not used by nervous system to eliminate redundant degrees of freedom, but to ensure flexible and stable performance of motor tasks
The Control of Movement: Theories of Motor Control • System Theories • Principle of self-organization: when a system of individual parts comes together, its elements behave collectively in an ordered way • Nonlinear system: output is not proportional to its input
The Control of Movement: Theories of Motor Control • System Theories • Dynamic theory: new movement emerges because of a critical change in one of the systems (control parameter) • Control parameter: variable that regulates change in behavior of entire system
The Control of Movement: Theories of Motor Control • System Theories • Dynamic theory: variability not considered result of error, but as necessary condition of optimal function • Small amount of variability indicates highly stable behavior • Attractor states: highly stable, preferred patterns of movement
The Control of Movement: Theories of Motor Control • System Theories • Limitations • Presumption nervous system less important role in determining animal’s behavior
The Control of Movement: Theories of Motor Control • System Theories • Clinical Implications • Stresses understanding body as mechanical system • Movement is emergent property • Retraining movement in patients with neural pathology
The Control of Movement: Theories of Motor Control • Ecological Theory • Motor control evolved so animals could cope with environment around them • Broadened understanding of nervous system function • Perception/action system actively explores environment to satisfy its own goals
The Control of Movement: Theories of Motor Control • Ecological Theory • Limitations • Research emphasis shifted from nervous system to organism/environment interface • Clinical Implications • Describing individual as active explorer of environment
The Control of Movement: Theories of Motor Control • Which Theory of Motor Control Is Best? • There is no one theory that has it all • Best theory of motor control: one that combines elements from all theories presented • Systems approach: movement emerges from interaction between individual, task, and environment in which task is being carried out
Parallel Development of Clinical Practice and Scientific Theory • Scientific Theory • Provides framework that allows integration of practical ideas into coherent philosophy for intervention • Clinical Practice • Evolves in parallel with scientific theory, as clinicians assimilate changes in scientific theory and apply them to practice
Parallel Development of Clinical Practice and Scientific Theory • Neurologic Rehabilitation: Reflex-Based Neurofacilitation Approaches • Neurofacilitation: retraining motor control through techniques designed to facilitate and/or inhibit different movement patterns • Facilitation: intervention techniques that increase patient’s ability to move in ways judged to be appropriate by clinician
Parallel Development of Clinical Practice and Scientific Theory • Task-Oriented Approach • Normal movement: interaction among many different systems, each contributing different aspects of control • Movement organized around behavioral goal and constrained by environment
Parallel Development of Clinical Practice and Scientific Theory • Task-Oriented Approach • Abnormal motor control: movement problems result from impairments within one or more of systems controlling movement • Adaptation to changes in environmental context critical part of recovery of function
Parallel Development of Clinical Practice and Scientific Theory • Task-Oriented Approach • Underlying Assumptions • Normal movement interaction among different systems, each contributing aspects of control • Movement organized around behavioral goal and constrained by environment • Movement problems from impairments within one or more of systems controlling movement
Parallel Development of Clinical Practice and Scientific Theory • Task-Oriented Approach • Clinical Applications • When retraining movement control, essential to work on identifiable functional tasks • Assumes patients learn by actively attempting to solve problems inherent in a functional task
Keller, P. E. (2012) - Mental Imagery in Music Performance. Underlying Mechanisms and Potential Benefits. Annals of The New York Academy of Sciences, 1252 (1), 206-213.