L29 Motor Control And Disease Flashcards
(27 cards)
What initiates all movements produced by the skeletal musculature?
Lower motor neurons
What does the spinal cord use to generate complex behaviours without input from the brain?
they use central patter generators which they contain to geenrate complex behaviours.
What are the lower motor neurons responsible for?
What are the neurons in the brain that control motor functions called?
Upper motor neurons.
Which part of the cortex elicits contraction of contra lateral body muscles?
Anterior part of the cortex
The motor cortex is somatotopically mapped. How is this topographic map similar to that of the somatosensory system?
Lower body is represented medially…
What does the axial muscles control?
They control trunk movement.
What does the proximal muscles control?
They control the shoulder, elbow, pelvis and knee movement.
What does the distal muscles control?
They control hands, feet, digits(fingers and toes) movement.
What does each muscle fibre receive?
They recieve input from a single lower(alpha) motor neuron.
What is the definition of a motor unit?
Motor unit is the motor neurons and all the muscle fibres it innervates.
What is the definition of a motor neuron pool?
Motor neuron pool is all the motor neurons that innervate a single muscle.
How are motor pools spatially organised in the spinal cord?
All the motor neurons innervating a particular muscle – the motor pool for that muscle - are grouped in rod-shaped clusters within the spinal cord extending over several vertebral segments
How do we know that motor pools are spatially organised in the spinal cord? Give us an experiement
From expts (in animals) where tracers are injected into specific muscles, which then transport back along the motor axons to the cell bodies in the spinal cord
How are motor pools organised somatotopically?
The medio-lateral position of a motor pool reflects whether its MNs innervate a proximal or distal muscle
Therefore, motor pools are organised somatotopically both medio-laterally and rostro-caudally (A-P
Where does the corticospinal tract (CST) project neurons from and to?
What is a lateral pathway?
How many layers are in the motor cortex?
What are the main inputs and outputs of the cortex?
What is special about layer V in the cortex ?
Slide 12
What does the vestibulospinal tract do?
What is the Tectospinal tract responsible for?
