Primary motor cortex and fast feedback responses to mechanical perturbations: A primer on what we know now and some suggestions on what we should find out next

Abstract

Many researchers have drawn a clear distinction between fast feedback responses to mechanical perturbations (e.g., stretch responses) and voluntary control processes. But this simple distinction is difficult to reconcile with growing evidence that long-latency stretch responses share most of the defining capabilities of voluntary control. My general view—and I believe a growing consensus—is that the functional similarities between long-latency stretch responses and voluntary control processes can be readily understood based on their shared neural circuitry, especially a transcortical pathway through primary motor cortex. Here I provide a very brief and selective account of the human and monkey studies linking a transcortical pathway through primary motor cortex to the generation and functional sophistication of the long-latency stretch response. I then lay out some of the notable issues that are ready to be answered.