The Autonomic Nervous System Differentiates between Levels of Motor Intent and End Effector.

Elizabeth Torres,Jihye Ryu

doi:10.3390/jpm10030076

Elizabeth Torres, Jihye Ryu

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/jpm10030076

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Abstract

While attempting to bridge motor control and cognitive science, the nascent field of embodied cognition has primarily addressed intended, goal-oriented actions. Less explored, however, have been unintended motions. Such movements tend to occur largely beneath awareness, while contributing to the spontaneous control of redundant degrees of freedom across the body in motion. We posit that the consequences of such unintended actions implicitly contribute to our autonomous sense of action ownership and agency. We question whether biorhythmic activities from these motions are separable from those which intentionally occur. Here we find that fluctuations in the biorhythmic activities of the nervous systems can unambiguously differentiate across levels of intent. More important yet, this differentiation is remarkable when we examine the fluctuations in biorhythmic activity from the autonomic nervous systems. We find that when the action is intended, the heart signal leads the body kinematics signals; but when the action segment spontaneously occurs without instructions, the heart signal lags the bodily kinematics signals. We conclude that the autonomic nervous system can differentiate levels of intent. Our results are discussed while considering their potential translational value.

Highlights

The field of embodied cognition (EC) has provided a powerful theoretical framework amenable to bridge the gap between research probing our mental states and research investigating our physical actions [1,2,3]
A body of knowledge has increased our understanding on the sensory consequences derived from intentional actions, as such action components deliver an overall sense of agency [9,10] through elements of body-ownership closely interrelated with motor control [11,12]
This paper examined elements of the construct of agency from the embodied cognition framework and dissected several layers of neuromotor control contributing to the sense of action ownership

Summary

Introduction

The field of embodied cognition (EC) has provided a powerful theoretical framework amenable to bridge the gap between research probing our mental states and research investigating our physical actions [1,2,3]. Changes in speed [21,30,31,32] or mass [14] affect their motor variability in fundamentally different ways (if we compare the signatures of variability derived from the spontaneous samples to those derived from deliberately staging the same movement trajectories [14,32].) More importantly, the fluctuations in the motor variability of these spontaneous motions can forecast symptoms of Parkinson’s disease before the onset of high severity [27,36] They have aided in evoking the sense of action ownership and agency in young pre-verbal children [28]. We use a new unifying statistical framework for individualized behavioral analyses and network connectivity analyses and offer a quantitative account of how these movement classes contribute to the overall embodied sense of agency

Participants

Sensor Devices

Experimental Procedure

Preprocessing

Some Solutions to the Challenges

Choice of Kinematics Parameter

Data Analysis on Kinematics Network Connectivity

Results

Discussion

The Autonomic Nervous System Differentiates across Levels of Motor Intent

Implications of the Results for Translational Cognitive Science