SPECIFICITY OF CENTRAL CELLULAR ELEMENTS OF CORTICAL MOTOR AREA IN ORGANIZATION OF PRECISE MOTOR REACTION

  • 1 January 1978
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 28  (3) , 475-483
Abstract
After elaboration and consolidation of precise instrumental avoidance reflexes in dogs (lifting of a fore-leg to a 4 cm wide safety zone), a part of the motor cortex in the area of the moving leg was ablated. After the operation the search for the safety zone (i.e., the precision of estimating the position of the leg, was irreversibly impaired, but the animal was still able to hold its extremity at the same level for a long period of time) was examined. Artificially elaborated motor coordination, antagonistic to the innate one, also showed irreversible impairment. In case of an extremely drilled reaction (5000 pairings) the elaborated coordination persisted. Minimal amplitude of correction movements increased also (i.e., subtlety of movements decreased), but during retraining this parameter of the movement became compensated. The specificity of central cellular elements of the cortical motor area consists in the estimation of extremity position which is necessary for finding a given point in space.

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