Department of Neuroscience, Biomedicine, and Movement Sciences, University of Verona, Via Casorati 43, 37131, Verona, Italy.
School of Psychology, Ulster University, Coleraine, Northern Ireland.
BMC Neurosci. 2021 Apr 1;22(1):23. doi: 10.1186/s12868-021-00626-3.
Tau theory explains how both intrinsically and perceptually guided movements are controlled by the brain. According to general tau theory, voluntary, self-paced human movements are controlled by coupling the tau of the movement (i.e., the rate of closure of the movement gap at its current closure rate) onto an intrinsically generated tau-guide (Lee in Ecol Psychol 10:221-250, 1998). To date there are no studies that have looked at involuntary movements, which are directly guided by innate patterns of neural energy generated at the level of the spinal cord or brain, and that can be explained by general tau theory. This study examines the guidance of an involuntary movement generated by the Patellar reflex in presence of a minimized gravitational field.
The results showed that the Patellar reflexive movement is strongly coupled to an intrinsic tau-guide particularly when the limb is not moving in the direction of gravity.
These results suggest that the same principles of control underpin both voluntary and involuntary movements irrespective of whether they are generated in the brain or the spinal cord. Secondly, given that movements like the patellar reflex are visible from infancy, one might conclude that tau-guidance is an innate form of motor control, or neural blueprint, that has evolved over time.
tau 理论解释了内在和感知引导的运动是如何被大脑控制的。根据一般 tau 理论，自愿的、自我调节的人类运动是通过将运动的 tau（即当前闭合速度下运动间隙的闭合速度）耦合到内在产生的 tau 引导上来控制的（Lee 在 Ecol Psychol 10:221-250, 1998）。迄今为止，还没有研究过直接由脊髓或大脑水平产生的固有神经能量模式引导的非自愿运动，而这些运动可以用一般 tau 理论来解释。本研究检查了在最小化重力场存在下由髌反射产生的非自愿运动的引导。
结果表明，髌反射性运动与内在的 tau 引导强烈耦合，特别是当肢体没有向重力方向移动时。
这些结果表明，无论运动是在大脑还是脊髓中产生，控制的基本原则都适用于自愿和非自愿运动。其次，鉴于髌反射等运动从婴儿期就可见，人们可能会得出结论，tau 引导是一种随着时间的推移而进化的固有运动控制形式，或者说是神经蓝图。
