Schwartz Andrew B
Department of Neurobiology, Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, McGowan Institute of Regenerative Medicine, Neural Engineering Program, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15213-2536, USA.
J Physiol. 2007 Mar 15;579(Pt 3):581-601. doi: 10.1113/jphysiol.2006.126698. Epub 2007 Jan 25.
Historically, the motor cortical function has been explained as a funnel to muscle activation. This invokes the idea that motor cortical neurons, or 'upper motoneurons', directly cause muscle contraction just like spinal motoneurons. Thus, the motor cortex and muscle activity are inextricably entwined like a puppet master and his marionette. Recently, this concept has been challenged by current experimentation showing that many behavioural aspects of action are represented in motor cortical activity. Although this activity may still be related to muscle activation, the relation between the two is likely to be indirect and complex, whereas the relation between cortical activity and kinematic parameters is simple and robust. These findings show how to extract useful signals that help explain the underlying process that generates behaviour and to harness these signals for potentially therapeutic applications.
从历史上看，运动皮质功能一直被解释为通向肌肉激活的漏斗。这引发了一种观点，即运动皮质神经元，或“上运动神经元”，就像脊髓运动神经元一样直接引起肌肉收缩。因此，运动皮质和肌肉活动就像木偶操纵者和他的木偶一样紧密相连。最近，这一概念受到了当前实验的挑战，实验表明运动皮质活动中体现了动作的许多行为方面。尽管这种活动可能仍与肌肉激活有关，但两者之间的关系可能是间接且复杂的，而皮质活动与运动学参数之间的关系则是简单而稳固的。这些发现展示了如何提取有用信号，以帮助解释产生行为的潜在过程，并利用这些信号用于潜在的治疗应用。
