Spinal Mechanisms for Sensorimotor Integration

Peripheral Sensory Neuronopathy

Peripheral sensory neuronopathy

A person with a disease that kills proprioceptive neurons has severe problems with the simplest of movements. The average person has no difficulty raising a coffee mug:

Kaltura Mediaspace

Source: Demo: proprioception makes raising a coffee mug easy (52 sec) | HHMI’s BioInteractive

Charles Freed has lost proprioceptive information and, consequently, has difficulty raising a coffee mug:

Kaltura Mediaspace

Source: Without proprioception, raising a mug is difficult (1 min 38 sec) | HHMI’s BioInteractive

In the absence of proprioceptive feedback, some individuals can compensate by using visual feedback:

Kaltura Mediaspace

Source: Ian Waterman: Compensating for proprioceptive loss (1 min 41 sec) | HHMI’s BioInteractive

Proprioceptive feedback makes it easy to touch one’s thumb to one’s fingers without looking:

Kaltura Mediaspace

Source: Demo: Touching thumb to fingers with proprioception (56 sec) | HHMI’s BioInteractive

In the absence of proprioception and visual feedback, it is impossible to touch thumb to fingers accurately.

Kaltura Mediaspace

Source: Waterman touching thumb to fingers without proprioception (1 min 15 sec) | HHMI’s BioInteractive

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KINES 200: Introductory Neuroscience Copyright © by Peter L.E. van Kan, Ph.D. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.