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Motor primitives--new data and future questions
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Motor primitives--new data and future questions

Simon F Giszter
Current opinion in neurobiology, v 33
Aug 2015
PMID: 25912883
url
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conb.2015.04.004View
Published, Version of Record (VoR) Open

Abstract

Biomechanical Phenomena Animals Movement - physiology Models, Biological Humans Muscle, Skeletal - innervation Brain - physiology Psychomotor Performance - physiology
Motor primitives allow integration across scales in the motor system and may link movement construction and circuit organization. This review examines support for primitives, and new data relating primitives to concrete circuit elements across species. Both kinematic motor primitives and muscle synergy/kinetic motor primitives are reviewed. Motor primitives allow a modular hierarchy that may be re-used by volitional systems in novel ways. They can provide a developmental bootstrap for ethologically important actions. Collections of primitives somewhat constrain motor acts, but at the same time sets of primitives facilitate the rapid construction of these constrained actions, and can allow use of simpler controls. Novel motor skill likely requires augmentation to transcend the constraints present in initial collections of low level motor primitives. The benefits and limitations of motor primitives and the recognized knowledge gaps and needs for future research are briefly discussed.

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