User:AshleyHardy/Gain-Field Encoding

Gain-field encoding is a hypothesis about the internal storage and processing of limb motion in the brain. Specific neurons have been reported to possess this ability to integrate prior knowledge of a motor task with an internal model to produce a desired motor output. Gain-field encoding also involves sensory-motor coupling, which is the sensory and motor systems working concurrently to generate purposeful motor commands. One example is that visual input is represented in eye coordinates and must be transformed into motor coordinates that your muscles use to elicit an appropriate response.

Overview
It has been suggested that the brain's motor system does not learn to control the dynamics of limbs by memorizing past experiences. Instead, it uses a form of dynamic adaptation in which the brain retains learned movements as a result of a change in the environment.

Internal Model
Research has proposed that the brain learns an internal model by associating the state of the body with forces that arise that depend on the state of the limbs. Equations of muscle force vectors

Motor Primitives
Research has shown that the brain learns arm movements by using a combination motor primitives. Equations

Sensorimotor Transformation
The sensorimotor system is able to translate information between different coordinate systems.

Research
Many studies have attempted to interpret how the motor system learns and adapts to a changing environment.

Models for Studying Motor Control
Motor skill learning and adaptation can be studied using various experimental techniques. Two standard approaches involve applying externally applied force fields to a subject during a reaching task or testing a subject's ability to visually rotate and interpret an image.

Dynamic Adaptation
Applying perturbations to subjects during a motor task.

Visuomotor Adaptation
Rotating images and recording how a subject responds and if they can identify how much an image has been rotated.

Computational Mechanisms
Algorithms have been implemented in an attempt the model various aspects of the sensorimotor system.

Parietal Cortex
The parietal cortex plays a major role in the sensorimotor system.

Posterior Parietal Cortex
The idea of 'gain-field encoding' was first discovered in neurons of the posterior parietal cortex.

Lateral Intraparietal Cortex (LIP)
Involved in coding targets for saccadic eye movements.