Question: How do many mammals walk on their first day of life, if the neocortex needs to learn the neural codes and associations? Easy: I say they’re not using their neocortex for that! If I understand correctly, there are innate motor control programs stored in the brainstem, midbrain, etc. The neocortex eventually learns to “press go” on these baked-in motor control programs at appropriate times, but the midbrain can also execute them based on its own parallel sensory-processing systems and associated instincts. My understanding is that humans are unusual among mammals—maybe even unique—in the extent to which our neocortex talks directly to muscles, rather than “pressing go” on the various motor programs of the evolutionarily-older parts of the brain.
I don’t have a better story here, but this seems odd in that we’d have to somehow explain why humans don’t use some baked-in motor control programs if they are there are other mammals. Not that we can’t, only that by default we should expect humans have them and they show an ability to let the neocortex and muscles “talk” directly, so it leaves this interesting question of why we think humans don’t engage with stored motor control programs too.
Well, to be clear, I do think we have subcortical motor programs, even if they’re relatively less important than in other mammals. An example would be scowling when angry, or flinching away from a projectile.
Why don’t we walk on the day we’re born? Because neither our brain nor our body is finished being built, I suppose.
I don’t have a better story here, but this seems odd in that we’d have to somehow explain why humans don’t use some baked-in motor control programs if they are there are other mammals. Not that we can’t, only that by default we should expect humans have them and they show an ability to let the neocortex and muscles “talk” directly, so it leaves this interesting question of why we think humans don’t engage with stored motor control programs too.
Well, to be clear, I do think we have subcortical motor programs, even if they’re relatively less important than in other mammals. An example would be scowling when angry, or flinching away from a projectile.
Why don’t we walk on the day we’re born? Because neither our brain nor our body is finished being built, I suppose.