Optimal feedback control and the neural basis of volitional motor control

Skilled motor behaviour, from the graceful leap of a ballerina to a precise pitch by a baseball player, appears effortless but reflects an intimate interaction between the complex mechanical properties of the body and control by a highly distributed circuit in the CNS. An important challenge for understanding motor function is to connect these three levels of the motor system - motor behaviour, limb mechanics and neural control. Optimal feedback control theory might provide the important link across these levels of the motor system and help to unravel how the primary motor cortex and other regions of the brain plan and control movement.