Autonomous Motion
Note: This department has relocated.

Rhythmic movement is not discrete

2004

Article

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Rhythmic movements, like walking, chewing, or scratching, are phylogenetically old mo-tor behaviors found in many organisms, ranging from insects to primates. In contrast, discrete movements, like reaching, grasping, or kicking, are behaviors that have reached sophistication primarily in younger species, particularly in primates. Neurophysiological and computational research on arm motor control has focused almost exclusively on dis-crete movements, essentially assuming similar neural circuitry for rhythmic tasks. In con-trast, many behavioral studies focused on rhythmic models, subsuming discrete move-ment as a special case. Here, using a human functional neuroimaging experiment, we show that in addition to areas activated in rhythmic movement, discrete movement in-volves several higher cortical planning areas, despite both movement conditions were confined to the same single wrist joint. These results provide the first neuroscientific evi-dence that rhythmic arm movement cannot be part of a more general discrete movement system, and may require separate neurophysiological and theoretical treatment.

Author(s): Schaal, S. and Sternad, D. and Osu, R. and Kawato, M.
Book Title: Nature Neuroscience
Volume: 7
Number (issue): 10
Pages: 1137-1144
Year: 2004

Department(s): Autonomous Motion
Bibtex Type: Article (article)

Cross Ref: p1621
Note: clmc
URL: http://www-clmc.usc.edu/publications/S/schaal-NatureNeuro2004.pdf

BibTex

@article{Schaal_NN_2004,
  title = {Rhythmic movement is not discrete},
  author = {Schaal, S. and Sternad, D. and Osu, R. and Kawato, M.},
  booktitle = {Nature Neuroscience},
  volume = {7},
  number = {10},
  pages = {1137-1144},
  year = {2004},
  note = {clmc},
  doi = {},
  crossref = {p1621},
  url = {http://www-clmc.usc.edu/publications/S/schaal-NatureNeuro2004.pdf}
}