Point-to-point learning in human motor systems

Motor planning is one of the key processes in human motor systems. It accounts for how the Central Nervous System (CNS) generates the desired trajectory for the human to follow in order to achieve the given task. This work focuses on a special task: point-to-point tracking. For this task, point-to-point learning is used with the aim for gaining a deeper understanding of motor learning. Point-to-point learning control (LC) not only naturally matches the task, but also provides tools to analyse learning in human motion planning. It is observed that the simulation results obtained by using tracking performance failed to match the observed motion performed by humans captured from experiments. It was then shown that additional objective, namely minimal jerk, is required to provide satisfactory results, suggesting that humans consider objectives other than tracking during motion planning. This finding provides experimental and mathematical validation to current hypotheses of human motor planning.