Proprioception in motion: role of muscle proprioceptive inputs in arm movements
Abstract
The octopus, with its eight long and flexible arms, is an example of highly efficient motor behavior reached in an animal lacking any rigid structure. The octopus uses unique strategies to cope with the complexity arising from its hyper-redundant body and appendages, including the hierarchical organization of the motor system and the rather autonomous arms. One important and rather under-investigated topic in the field of octopus motor control is represented by the presence and functional role of proprioception. Old studies showed the presence of sensory cells with a potential proprioceptive role, but their use in tactile sensing or motion behaviors has been long debated. Behavioral studies suggest that in octopuses, proprioception deliver global cues to the central nervous system(CNS) used to guide arm motion. Moreover, physiological experiments suggested that uniquely to the octopus arm feedback from proprioceptors are an integral part of the peripheral neuronal circuitry that control the feedforward arm extension program. The use of proprioceptive information in octopus may represent a mean for modulating the motor output directed to muscles during action execution. Moreover, it is possible that in octopus proprioceptors are an integral part of the peripheral neural networks, involved in generation of stereotypical motion#s element allowing accurate performance of movements. In this project, we will use whole arm preparation to investigate the functional role of muscle proprioceptors in the arm motion using techniques of biomechanics, high-resolution microscopy, motion kinematics, electrophysiology, and spike clustering. We expect to define the presence, type, information pathway and functional role of muscle proprioceptive receptors in single arms. In particular, we will uncover their involvement in the arm stretch-induced withdrawal response, sucker reflex and in bend propagation. In addition, we will provide information on how stretch is coded into proprioceptive responses and if this information is used to build or refine motoneuronal commands. The information provided by this project will be useful in light of the implementation of proprioception in artificial manipulator that will allow reaching a higher degree of autonomy of the soft structure with greatly reducing the complexity burden needed to activate and control actuators.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jan 12, 2023
- Source ID
- N000142312083
Entities
People
- Letizia Zullo
Organizations
- Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy