Motor control

1. Describe the different types of muscle and explain how they are controlled by motor neurons.
2. Explain why muscles contract and relax.
3. Differentiate between the subtypes of skeletal muscle.
4. Define a motor unit.
5. Give examples of the antagonistic actions of muscles.
6. Explain the two mechanisms of controlling the force of muscle.
7. Explain how larger motor units are recruited after smaller motor units.
8. Compare and contrast polyneuronal control of a muscle fiber, with uniterminal innervation or spiking muscle cells, and with control of gap-junction connected smooth muscle cells.
9. Describe somatotopic organization in motor systems.
10. Show how a withdrawal reflex works and relate it to the crossed extensor reflex.
11. Explain how muscle spindle organs are used to respond to unexpected loads during voluntary motor control.
12. Describe the function and circuitry underlying the tendon reflex.
13. Describe the anatomical organization of a motor unit in a vertebrate.
14. Explain how motor patterns can be generated from central pattern generators and using chain reflexes.
15. Describe how the cellular properties of neurons can be used to generate a neural circuit that is a pattern generator.
16. Explain how a single neuron can oscillate in voltage without any synaptic input.
17. Describe the major network properties that are employed in neural circuits to generate patterned output.
18. Show how a neural circuit can coordinate propagation of motor activity between body segments.
19. Explain the mechanism of post-inhibitory rebound.
20. Explain the function of reciprocal inhibition and reciprocal excitation.
21. Describe how sensory feedback can be used to stabilize flight in the locust.
22. Show how sensory information can gate or entrain a behavior using synaptic input to a neural circuit.
23. Explain how a CPG and chain reflex can work together to produce rhythmic motor output.
24. Draw a network that could use a population code for controlling direction of an arm.  Assume the arm has only two muscles, a left-pulling muscle, and a right-pulling muscle.
25. Describe the direct pathway of motor control from the cerebral cortex.
26. Describe the role of the pre-motor cortex and the supplementary motor areas.
27. Describe the function of the reticulospinal and vestibulospinal tracts.
28. Describe the role of the basal ganglia in initiating voluntary movement and show how such control can be disrupted by disease.
29. Explain the roles of the different parts of the cerebellum.
30. For what does the cerebellum use the "efferent copy" that is receives from the motor cortex?
31. What is the most general function of the brain in motor control?
32. Explain how giant interneurons initiate escape behavior in worms, crickets, crayfish, and cockroaches.
33. Explain how a moth can exhibit negative phontaxis from a bat from any direction (even above).
34. Explain how a cricket can exhibit positive phonotaxis to some sounds and negative phonotaxis to other sounds.
35. Show how stretch receptors can affect the flexion or extension of the cockroach leg when the leg receives an input from a giant interneuron.
36. Why do the different GIs in the cockroach respond to attacks from different directions?
37. How is the vestibuloocular reflex modulated?

modified 11-20-03