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Motor Control and Reflexes Overview
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Motor Control and Reflexes Overview
Motor Control and Reflexes Overview
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1
Question
Who argued that the basic units of behavior are reflexes?
Answer
Sir Charles Sherrington.
2
Question
What are reflexes described as?
Answer
Simple, unvarying, and unlearned responses to sensory stimuli such as touch, pressure, and pain.
3
Question
What movement in psychology further developed the idea of reflexes as the basic units of behavior?
Answer
Behaviorism.
4
Question
What is a significant problem with the behaviorism approach?
Answer
There are complex movements that cannot be explained through the chaining of reflexes.
5
Question
What is the motor plan also called?
Answer
The motor program.
6
Question
What does the motor plan consist of?
Answer
A complex set of commands to muscles that is established before the behavior starts.
7
Question
How does feedback affect the motor program?
Answer
Feedback from movements informs and fine-tunes the motor program as it unfolds.
8
Question
What is the skeletal system's role in movement?
Answer
It is the basis of movement; it is actually the bones that are moved by the muscles.
9
Question
What defines the possible movements in the skeletal system?
Answer
The articulations, or joints, between bones.
10
Question
What happens during muscle contraction?
Answer
Muscles contract, meaning they get shorter, resulting in movement.
11
Question
Do some muscles pull on bones?
Answer
No, some muscles do not pull on bones, such as the muscles of the eyelids and diaphragm.
12
Question
What are muscles made up of?
Answer
Muscle fibers, which contain myofibrils.
13
Question
What are myofibrils made up of?
Answer
Proteins inside muscle cells.
14
Question
What happens when neurons innervate muscle fibers?
Answer
Transmitters are released, ion channels open on muscle cells, and internal ion concentrations change, leading to contraction of myofibrils.
15
Question
Which nervous system innervates muscles?
Answer
The somatic nervous system.
16
Question
What do spinal motor neurons contact?
Answer
Muscles through neuromuscular junctions.
17
Question
What are muscle spindles?
Answer
The sensory elements in the muscle stretch reflex.
18
Question
What do muscle spindles do when a muscle is stretched?
Answer
They send signals to the motor neurons in the spinal cord to contract the stretched muscle.
19
Question
What significant discovery is associated with the muscle stretch reflex?
Answer
Neural coding is based on the rate of action potentials.
20
Question
Who shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology in 1932 for their discoveries related to the muscle stretch reflex?
Answer
Sir Edgar Adrian and Sir Charles Sherrington.
21
Question
What does the general design of the motor system include?
Answer
Primary and nonprimary motor cortex, the cerebellum, and the basal ganglia.
22
Question
How are facial and neck muscles innervated?
Answer
From nuclei in the brainstem.
23
Question
How are the muscles of the body innervated?
Answer
By neurons in the spinal cord.
24
Question
What generates motor commands in the motor cortices?
Answer
The primary motor cortex.
25
Question
What is the role of the supplementary motor area?
Answer
It is important in planning internally generated movements.
26
Question
What does the premotor cortex involve?
Answer
Stimulus-guided movement and it houses mirror neurons.
27
Question
What do mirror neurons do?
Answer
They fire shortly before a monkey makes a particular movement and whenever they see another individual make that same movement.
28
Question
What role do the basal ganglia play in movement?
Answer
They determine the amplitude and direction of movement and the initiation of movement.
29
Question
What does the cerebellum do for skilled movements?
Answer
It elaborates neural programs for the control of skilled movements, particularly rapid, repeated movements that become automatic.
30
Question
How do the basal ganglia and the cerebellum work with the motor cortex?
Answer
The basal ganglia help to initiate and terminate movements, while the cerebellum and supplementary motor area monitor ongoing activity to produce smooth movements.