Synergistic control of hand muscles through common neural input

Abstract

Skilled grasping and manipulation rely on spatial and temporal coordination of multiple hand muscles. This chapter describes the phenomenon of common neural input to hand muscles as one of the mechanisms through which the Central Nervous system might coordinate the neural activation of groups of hand muscles acting on a single or multiple digits. The heterogeneous distribution of common input to intrinsic and extrinsic hand muscles is discussed in relation to its functional role for the coordination of hand muscles.