Intermittent Brain Motor Control Observed in Continuous Tracking Task

In the present study, the author analyzed the hand movement in one-dimensional visuo-manual tracking task. When the target moved slowly or unpredictably, the hand velocity contained many bell-shaped components lasting several-hundred milliseconds. When the target moved fast and sinusoidally, on the other hand, subjects seemed to adjust the movement by a unit of cycle. These findings suggest that our brain divides temporal axis into discrete segments and plans/adjusts motor commands for each segment. This “intermittent motor control” may be the brain’s fundamental strategy for achieving good motor performance with slow sensorimotor system.