Motor Skills and Sensory Systems Quiz

Motor Skills and Motor Games: Sensory Components of Motor Control

• Course title: Motor Skills and Motor Games
• Course instructor: Juan Pablo Rey Lopez
• Course professor's affiliation: Catholic University of Murcia (UCAM)
• Course credits: 4.5 ECTS
• Course timing: First semester 2024/25

Introduction

• Understanding the anatomical and physiological basis of sensory systems (touch, proprioception, vision) is crucial for comprehending how these influence movement control.
• Sensory systems like touch, proprioception, and vision play a vital role in everyday activities, such as reaching for a drink or catching a ball.

Sensory Physiology Involved in Motor Control

• The three major senses involved in human sensory physiology for motor control are proprioception, touch, and vision.
• Other senses, like auditory information, are relevant in activities like sports or maintaining balance.

Proprioception

• Historical Background:

  • Aristotle believed in five primary senses; more complex views on sensing body position evolved later.
  • Physiologists of the past, such as Bell, described connections between voluntary muscles and the brain in regards to body position.
  • German physiologists considered a "muscle sense" but focused on brain-based sensation rather than muscle-originating sensation.
  • Charles Scott Sherrington challenged the idea of muscle sense as a purely centralized sensation and emphasized peripheral signals.

• Definition: The ability to sense the position and movement of body parts in space including the strength of muscle force.

• Proprioceptors: Tissues containing mechanical sensors that respond to changes in shape or tension based on passive or active movement, these include skeletal muscle, tendons, joint ligaments, connective tissues surrounding muscles, and skin.

• Kinesthetic Sensors (Muscle Spindles): Crucial for kinesthesia (movement awareness).

  • Structure of sensory fibers (intrafusal fibers) and other relevant details.
  • Important role in proprioception and muscle length changes.
  • Evidence from joint replacement surgery and muscle vibration studies highlight muscle spindles as a dominant mechanoreceptor responsible for proprioception.

Proprioception in the Elderly

• Muscle fiber and motoneuron loss is common and can affect proprioceptive functions.
• Aging impacts muscle spindles.
• Studies indicate potential reductions in proprioceptive sensitivity related to age.

Proprioceptive Training and Ankle Sprains

• Proprioceptive Training: Exercises designed to improve the ability of the joints to detect and react to sensory input regulating joint position.
• Examples: balancing on wobble boards, throwing/catching objects, dribbling a ball while in single-leg stance, and closed-eye balancing.
• Goal: Reduce the incidence and recurrence of ankle sprains in sports.

The Senses of Force

• The ability to sense and match forces.
• Studies contrasting self-generated force with externally produced force reveal overestimation of self-generated force at low levels.
• This overestimation seems due to a partial suppression of afferent activity associated with self-generated force, letting attention focus on external sensations.
• The same overestimation effect applies to fatigue on one specific arm affecting the opposing, unaffected arm.

Analyzing Results of RCTs

• Common analysis techniques for clinical trials: comparisons of risks, time-to-event analyses, and means comparisons.

Relative Risk (Risk Ratio or Rate Ratio)

• Relative risk (RR) is used in calculations to determine the relationship between an exposure and an outcome.
• The relative risk ratio is 1.0 if there is no association between exposure and outcome.
• A relative risk ratio of less than 1 indicates protection, while a relative risk ratio greater than 1 suggests an increased risk.

Survival Curve (Kaplan-Meier Curve)

• Visual representation of patient survival over time
• Depicts the effect of a treatment on patient survival rates.

Number Needed to Treat (NNT)

• Calculation method to estimate the number of patients who require treatment to prevent one additional bad outcome.
• Calculated as the inverse of the absolute risk reduction.

Additional Considerations

• The effectiveness of proprioceptive training in preventing ankle sprains in sports populations.
• Consideration of people with a history of ankle sprains and those without a history, as this could affect training outcomes.
• Effectiveness of bracing vs proprioceptive training for preventing ankle sprains.

This quiz explores the sensory components of motor control, focusing on proprioception, touch, and vision. Gain insights into how these sensory modalities influence movement in everyday activities and sports. Test your understanding of the anatomical and physiological underpinnings of these sensory systems.