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What can we expect from models of motor control?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 February 2010

Gerald E. Loeb
Affiliation:
Bio-Medical Engineering Unit, Queen's University, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada, jerryl@lion.ibionics.com

Abstract

The lambda model of servocontrol seems superior to the alpha model in terms of dealing with the mechanical complexities of nonlinear and multiarticular muscles. Both, however, can be trivialized by noting that the “control variable” may simply be the sum of descending influences at propriospinal interneurons in the case of the lambda model or in the muscles themselves in the case of the alpha model. The notion that the brain explicitly computes output in terms of any such control variables may be an engineering metaphor, useful for conceptual understanding but not for generating predictive hypotheses about higher motor circuitry.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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