Motor development

Starting early in prenatal life, progressive, and sometimes regressive, changes in recognizable movement and postural patterns from simple to more complex forms of organization, associated with growth, maturation and experience. Theoretically, the study of motor development, largely through the application of dynamical systems thinking starting in the 1990s, involves a number of issues such the how …

Motor cortex

The part of the cerebral cortex, including the primary motor cortex and adjacent areas of the frontal lobe, that generates commands for movement, connected directly to the motoneurons of the spinal cord as well as indirectly to other so-called motor structures such as the basal ganglia and the cerebellum via the thalamus (see figure below). …

Motor ability

The qualities, power, competence, faculties, proficiencies, dexterities, talents, etc., that enable one to perform a particular motor feat at a specified time.  It is a theoretical construct regarding factors that underlie proficiency in motor tasks (e.g., strength, speed, power, agility, balance, coordination, flexibility, accuracy, endurance).  The factors are ordinarily measured with standardized tests (e.g., vertical …

Motoneuron

A nerve cell (i.e., spinal motoneuron) innervating a muscle.  Thus, it is an efferent neuron that originates in the spinal cord and synapses with muscle fibers to facilitate muscle contraction and with muscle spindles to modify proprioceptive sensitivity.  Motoneurons in both the somatic and autonomic nervous system (ANS) originate in the ventral gray column of …

Motility

The ability to move spontaneously, used particularly with reference to independent cell locomotion (e.g., by spermatozoa) and the first movements of the embryo.  The latter are generated by spontaneous activity in the central nervous system and are not related to a specific task or goal. See Cell locomotion, Central pattern generator (CPG), Embryo, Movement, Peristaltic, …