Human Hand Movement Kinematics and Kinesthesia

For reaching tasks, the human kinesthetic sensory system uses a trunk-fixed anterior/posterior (a-p) axis as a frame of reference in the horizontal plane. Hand motion is aligned more precisely to the a-p axis than to visually presented axes, and precision degrades with angular displacement from the a-p axis. The central nervous system’s need to perform coordinate transformations between the vision and kinesthetic systems explains this result. Also, kinesthetic perception of hand motion is more precise in the ipsilateral than in the contralateral hemifield, likely due to higher precision in sensing elbow flexion than shoulder rotation.

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