Week 7 Vocabulary Flashcards
Skeletal muscle
Striated (striped) muscle that is involved in intentional, voluntary movements.
Reflex
Fast and involuntary reactions that involve motor interneurons, motoneurons, and skeletal muscles. They are not driven by the central nervous system, but may be modulated.
Stereotyped movement
A movement that usually serves a basic function, such as chewing or locomotion, that typically follows a very similar pattern each time. Central pattern generators are usually involved.
Intentional movements
Volitional movements that have deliberate or emotional reasons. These movements originate from cortical motor control centers, and involve actions such as reaching, talking, writing, and dancing.
Motor hierarchy
The motor hierarchy is the top-down organization of the motor system, from cortex to brainstem, the spinal cord, and muscles.
Brainstem motor control centers
Control repetitive and automatic movements, such as walking, posture, orienting
Flaccid paralysis
Weakness and paralysis that results reduced muscle tone
Cerebellum
The cerebellum’s role in motor control includes movement correction and muscle coordination. Disorders of the cerebellum can lead to ataxia
Basal ganglia
The basal ganglia’s role in motor control is action selection and suppression. Disorders of the basal ganglia can lead to a poverty of movement
Ataxia
Uncoordinated movements, that can be inaccurate or jerky in nature
Choreiform movements
Extraneous, dance-like movements
Dysmetria
Error in measuring error of movements, that leads to inaccurate movements
Motor unit
A motoneuron and the muscles it innervates
Order of recruitment
The orderly activation of muscles fibers, from slow to fast
Monosynaptic reflex
Also known as the stretch reflex. sensory input from muscle and motor output reflex involving one synapse in the central nervous system. A mono-synaptic reflex occurs when an intrafusal fiber stretch stimulates a sensory neuron, which in turn excites a motoneuron that synapses onto an extrafusal fiber.
