From Motivation to Motor Control and back
“How does the brain relate incentive motivation to behaviour? Do decisions between movements abide by the same principles of motor control? How are these principles altered under Parkison’s Disease or related movement disorders? The dominant mainstream theory about the neural control of movement, Optimal Feedback Control (OFC), is at best partial to explain the dynamics of interaction between the level of motivation or engagement of a person and the specific selection of motor parameters he or she makes. In fact, most models so far, have not properly characterised neither how the dynamics of internal motivation relate to the motor parameters of a motor response, nor how the dopaminergic system is putatively involved in determining these parameters, mainly focusing on reward prediction error. The goal of the study I am embarked on aims at filling in this gap by providing a normative manner of relating motivation to motor control. I will present the results of some preliminary experiments in which we induce different motivated states via social competition to gain reward, and analyse the resulting selection of motor parameters. Finally, I will discuss some of the theoretical implications of these results.”
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