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Ayurveda and COVID-19
Published in Srijan Goswami, Chiranjeeb Dey, COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2, 2022
The CNS consists of the brain, the cranial nerves, the spinal cord, and a network of nerves that connects every organ of the body to the brain. There are two main branches of the CNS—sensory and motor. Sensory nerves carry sensations to the brain and motor nerves carry instructions from the brain to the organs and muscles. The network of sensory nerves collects sensations from all the sensory organs (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin) from all over the body and carries them to the brain. The brain compiles all the sensations and creates a complete picture. The picture is compared with the memory of past events and a line of action is decided upon. The brain then sends instructions to the organs of action through the network of motor nerves. All this activity happens at lightning speed. This is how all voluntary action takes place.
Voluntary and reflex action and the autonomic nervous system
Published in Nan Stalker, Pain Control, 2018
Actions which are in the first place voluntary become, in a sense, reflex: for example, standing is in the first place a voluntary action which is produced by the will. When we have learned to keep our balance on two feet we learn to do it by the sensations from the skin of our feet, and from muscles and joints and the sensory organs of balance, and we can stand without voluntary effort unless disease affects the sensory nerves.
Mill’s absolute ban on paternalism
Published in Kalle Grill, Jason Hanna, The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Paternalism, 2018
Although it is not always easy to distinguish between competence and incompetence (especially because competent agents can become temporarily incompetent under the influence of drugs, disease, and so on), a competent person’s voluntary actions are the feasible intentions she chooses to implement. To elaborate, her intention is a forecast of her movements (if any) to achieve a desired outcome X at some future time (which may be soon or distant), and her action (or course of action) Y is the intention plus the movements which she chooses because she believes they are needed to carry out the intention and achieve X. In short, her intention to achieve X by choosing Y is the conjunction of a wish to bring about X and a belief that X is likely to result from Y, where X may be defined comprehensively to include Y for convenience. For Mill, a wish or volition is determined by the strongest present desire, whereas a belief is a type of thought or idea which may be mistaken. So, a competent person’s voluntary action is a feasible intention to achieve a feasible outcome that she most wants to achieve and thinks can be achieved by taking this action at present.5
An overview of the pharmacotherapeutics for dystonia: advances over the past decade
Published in Expert Opinion on Pharmacotherapy, 2022
O. Abu-hadid, J. Jimenez-Shahed
Dystonia, as defined in the Movement Disorder Society consensus of 2013, is ‘a movement disorder characterized by sustained or intermittent muscle contractions causing abnormal, often repetitive, movements, postures, or both. Dystonic movements are typically patterned, twisting, and may be tremulous. Dystonia is often initiated or worsened by voluntary action and associated with overflow muscle activation.’ [1]. To help aid in organizing a framework for classifying dystonia, it is described based on two axes: (I) clinical characteristics, and (II) etiology [1]. One of the main clinical characteristics that dictate treatment is the distribution of dystonia, which can be generalized, focal, or segmental. Generalized dystonia involves multiple non-contiguous body parts and can result from structural and genetic etiologies or be idiopathic. Focal dystonia involves a specific body part and can be triggered by performing a specific task, referred to as task-specific dystonia. Examples of focal dystonia are cervical dystonia (CD), spasmodic dysphonia, and blepharospasm (BS), whereas task-specific dystonias include writer’s cramp and musician’s dystonia. Finally, segmental dystonia occurs in multiple contiguous segments of the body such as Meige syndrome. Dystonia can also be clinically characterized as isolated, where the only movement disorder is dystonia with or without tremor, or combined, when the dystonia is associated with other movement disorders. Based on etiology, dystonia can be considered inherited, acquired, or idiopathic.
Expressing unconscious general knowledge using Chevreul’s pendulum
Published in American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 2022
A key modern theory of voluntary action is predictive processing (e.g. Clark, 2019). Its account of action by “active inference” is remarkably similar to James’: In order to move, one forms a model of the proprioceptive sensations that would be experienced if the movement were to happen. But a crucial extra step is needed for intentional movement: The actual proprioceptive signal is dampened so that it does not override the model of what should be experienced (the dampening thereby producing a form of sensory attenuation). Ideomotor action could be defined to be that movement that arises simply from imagining the movement. The smallness of the movements (i.e., their need to be magnified by a pendulum in order to be observed) shows why something extra is needed for large movements: An intention, which may produce both the proprioceptive model and the dampening of the actual proprioceptive signal.
A Motor Learning Approach to Reducing Fall-Related Injuries
Published in Journal of Motor Behavior, 2021
Katherine L. Hsieh, Jacob J. Sosnoff
Classically, a motor skill is defined as the ability to perform a predetermined movement pattern with maximum certainty (Schmidt et al., 2018). For a movement to be considered a motor skill, it must contain three main characteristics: 1) have a desired environmental goal, 2) be a voluntary action, and 3) be learnable as a result of practice or experience characterized by the ability to be transferred and retained over time (Schmidt et al., 2018). This narrative review examines the evidence concerning whether movement strategies within each phase of falling (destabilization, decent, and impact) can be viewed as a motor skill based on the three motor skill characteristics is discussed. Furthermore, whether safe landing strategies can be learned and performed by older adults and serve as another solution to reduce fall-related injuries is discussed.