What are motor systems?
connect brain to muscles, allowing movement, involve behaviors and circuits that create them, ranging from reflexes to complexity (voluntry movement)
What types of behaviors do motor systems produce?
Simple and complex behavior
- Simple: involve circuits in the brainstem or spinal cord
- Complex: behaviors involve higher brain areas like cortex
What are the 3 general classes of movement in motor systems?
Reflex: simple movement controlled by neural circuits in spinal cord or brainstem
Rhythmic movements: movements with repeating patters (walking), regulated by a central pattern generator in the brainstem or spinal cord
Voluntary Movements: intentional actions requiring higher brain areas such as the cortex, basal ganglia, and cerebellum
In general, a reflex uses neurons located in the ___ while voluntary movements requires neurons located in ___
1. spinal cord
2. the cortex
How are sesnory and mottor systems connected?
they are closely linked. sensory information continuously guides and motivated behavior, meaninng they can’t truly seperate the two.
Can you clearly define voluntary and involuntary movements?
there’s some overlap between voluntary and involuntary movements, making it difficult to always seperate them.
What sensory structurtes are found in the muscles?
muscle splindles that detetc change in muscle length and send feedback to the nervous system, causing movement.
Anterograde tracing?
dye in injected into the cell body (soma) and travels down axon. This method helps trace the pathway from the cell body to where axon ends, allowing full reconstruction of axonal pathways
retrograde tracing?
dye is injected into a target area (ex nerve terminal) and travels back towards cell body (soma).
helps trace connection from nerve terminal back to cell that controls it
The two methods of anatomical: tracer injections.
Anterograde tracing (dye moves from soma to axon terminal)
retograde tracing (dye moves from axon terminal back to soma)