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The motor system is the set of central and peripheral structures in the nervous system that support motor functions, i.e. movement. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Peripheral structures may include skeletal muscles and neural connections with muscle tissues. [ 2 ]
A single motor neuron and the muscle fibers it innervates are called a motor unit. For example, the rectus femoris contains approximately 1 million muscle fibers, which are controlled by around 1000 motor neurons. Activity in the motor neuron causes contraction in all of the innervated muscle fibers so that they function as a unit.
A motor skill is a function that involves specific movements of the body's muscles to perform a certain task. These tasks could include walking, running, or riding a bike. In order to perform this skill, the body's nervous system, muscles, and brain have to all work together.
A series of experiments demonstrated the interrelation between motor experience and high-level reasoning. For example, although most individuals recruit visual processes when presented with spatial problems such as mental rotation tasks [24] motor experts favor motor processes to perform the same tasks, with higher overall performance. [25]
General depiction of a motor unit, consisting of a motor neuron innervating a group of muscle fibers. Motor unit recruitment is the activation of additional motor units to accomplish an increase in contractile strength in a muscle. [1] A motor unit consists of one motor neuron and all of the muscle fibers it stimulates.
Groups of motor units often work together as a motor pool to coordinate the contractions of a single muscle. The concept was proposed by Charles Scott Sherrington. [2] Usually muscle fibers in a motor unit are of the same fiber type. [3] When a motor unit is activated, all of its fibers contract.
A motor nerve, or efferent nerve, is a nerve that contains exclusively efferent nerve fibers and transmits motor signals from the central nervous system (CNS) to the muscles of the body. This is different from the motor neuron , which includes a cell body and branching of dendrites, while the nerve is made up of a bundle of axons.
Additionally, outputs from the motor system can be used to modify the sensory system's response to future stimuli. [1] [2] To be useful it is necessary that sensory-motor integration be a flexible process because the properties of the world and ourselves change over time. Flexible sensorimotor integration would allow an animal the ability to ...