The Brain in Motion: From Microcircuits to Global Brain Function

✍ Scribed by Sten Grillner

• Publisher: The MIT Press
• Year: 2023
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 287
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

An evolutionary perspective—from lampreys to humans—on how the forebrain coordinates movement while the networks in the brainstem and spinal cord handle the execution.

All living creatures interact with their environment: even the most basic have a set of innate motor circuits they rely on to feed, locomote, fight, and flee. In The Brain in Motion, Sten Grillner describes the evolution of the motor repertoire of vertebrates, from protovertebrates to primates. With breadth and depth, Grillner explores how the brain uses the different microcircuits in the brainstem and spinal cord, coordinating them through commands from the forebrain. He also considers the normal function of the brain as a platform for understanding clinical conditions such as stroke, Parkinson´s and Huntington´s diseases, and spinal cord injury.

Grillner also explains in The Brain in Motion how the remarkable finding that the lamprey forebrain has all the components of the mammalian one has radically changed scientists’ views on the evolutionary origin of the vertebrate forebrain. We now know that the basic organization evolved 560 rather than 300 million years ago, as was previously thought. The forebrain, says Grillner, is like an orchestra conductor, while the microcircuits, with their reaching, grasping, posture, locomotion, and numerous other patterns of behavior, correspond to the members of the orchestra. The conductor determines when each will be called into action.

Providing an elegantly integrated perspective, The Brain in Motion is essential reading for anybody that works professionally with movement control and function and dysfunction, whether in basic research, clinically, or in the training of motor skills.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents
Preface
1. The Vertebrate Motor Repertoire and the Evolution of the Brain
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Vertebrate Motor Behavior from Lamprey to Humans: Overview in an Evolutionary Perspective
1.3 The Basic Building Blocks of Behavior: Motor Programs and Their Selection—Overview
1.4 The Blueprint of the Vertebrate Motor System Is 500 Million Years Old
2. Execution of Movement: A Palette of CPGS and Motor Centers from Midbrain to Spinal Cord
2.1 Introduction
2.2 CPG Networks Producing Locomotor, Respiratory, and Chewing Movements and Related Behaviors
2.3 A Brainstem Center for Coordination of Reaching and Grasping Movements in the Lateral Reticular Medulla
2.4 The PAG Channels Commands from the Hypothalamus and Amygdala
2.5 Integration of Innate Motor Programs in Daily Life: Skilled Aspects of the Control of Motion
2.6 Conclusion
3. The Vertebrate Solution for Action in the Egocentric Space: Multisensory Integration in the Tectum/Superior Colliculus
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Multisensory Representation of the Surrounding Space in the Tectum/SC
3.3 The Tectum/SC Control of Eye, Orienting, and Evasive Movements
3.4 Conclusion
4. The Roles of the Basal Ganglia: For Initiation of Movement and Motor Learning
4.1 Overview: The Relation between the Cortex and the Basal Ganglia
4.2 Basal Ganglia: Organization
4.3 Synaptic Interaction within the Striatum
4.4 Integrated Function of the Basal Ganglia
4.5 Dysfunction of the Basal Ganglia: Parkinson’s and Huntington’s Diseases and Other Conditions
4.6 The Contribution of the Basal Ganglia to the Selection of Action and the Control of Movement Amplitude
4.7 The Organization of the Basal Ganglia Is Conserved from Lampreys to Primates
5. The Role of the Cortex in the Control of Movement
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Somatosensory and Visuomotor Coordination Critical in the Preparatory Phase and the Transition between Different Commands in a Motor Sequence
5.3 The Motor Areas in the Frontal Lobe of Primates and Other Vertebrates
5.4 Neocortical Organization at the Cellular Level and the Interaction between the Frontal Motor Areas, Striatum, and Downstream Motor Targets
5.5 Motor Capacity after Lesions to the Neocortex, Including the Motor Cortex
5.6 Cortical Control of Robotic Arms via the Brain-Machine Interface after Spinal Cord Injury
5.7 Concluding Remarks: The Neocortex and the Control of Movement
6. The Cerebellum: Contributes to the Perfection of Coordination
6.1 Introduction
6.2 The Cerebellar Circuitry
6.3 Spinal Cord Interaction with the Cerebellum: Locomotion and Other Movements
6.4 The Cerebellum and the Vestibulo-Ocular and Optokinetic Reflexes: Calibration of Motor Action
6.5 Parallel Fiber Synapses onto Purkinje Cells: Active and Silent Synapses—Plasticity
6.6 The Cerebellum’s Role for Learning to Associate Two Related but Independent Processes: Conditioned Reflexes
6.7 Modeling and Simulation of the Cerebellar Circuitry
6.8 Concluding Remarks: The Overall Role of the Cerebellum
7. Comments on What We Have Learned and the Challenges Ahead
7.1 “To Move or Not to Move,” a Question Answered by the Basal Ganglia in Close Interaction with the Cortex
7.2 The Major Organizational Building Blocks of Motion
7.3 The Role of the Cerebellum: The Perfection of Coordination
7.4 Some Challenges Ahead
References
Index