Voluntary actions typically produce suppression of afferent sensation from the moving body part. We used transcranial magnetic stimulation to delay the output of motor commands from the motor cortex during voluntary movement. We show attenuation of sensation during this delay, in the absence of movement. We conclude that sensory suppression mainly relies on central signals related to the prepar...

Editor's Note: These short reviews of a recent paper in the Journal, written exclusively by graduate students or postdoctoral fellows, are intended to mimic the journal clubs that exist in your own departments or institutions. For more information on the format and purpose of the Journal Club, please see Review of Hatsopoulos et al. Although it is broadly accepted that primary motor cortex (M1)...

In Drosophila melanogaster the staufen gene encodes an RNA-binding protein that is essential for the correct localization of certain nurse cell-derived transcripts in oocytes. Although the mechanism underlying mRNA localization is unknown, mRNA-staufen complexes have been shown to move in a microtubule-dependent manner, and it has been suggested that staufen associates with a motor protein whic...

When reaching toward a target, human subjects use slower movements to achieve higher accuracy, and this can be accompanied by increased limb impedance (stiffness, viscosity) that stabilizes movements against motor noise and external perturbation. In arthropods, the activity of common inhibitory motor neurons influences limb impedance, so we hypothesized that this might provide a mechanism for s...

background and objective: achievement of motor skills is an important part of childhood development. there are some scales that commonly used for preschool-aged children including peabody developmental motor scales, 2nd edition (pdms-2). a cross sectional study designed to compare motor skills of high risk and normal infants of 3 to 6 months of age. methods: in this case control study, 45 high ...

The primary motor cortex produces motor commands that include encoding the direction of movement. Excitability of the motor cortex in the reaction time (RT) task can be assessed using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). To elucidate the timing of the increase in cortical excitability and of the determination of movement direction before movement onset, we asked six right-handed, healthy su...