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The Royal Society, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 1793(281), p. 20141911, 2014

DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2014.1911

The Royal Society, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 1700(277), p. 3563-3568, 2010

DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2010.0898

Elsevier, Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology - Part A: Molecular & Integrative Physiology, 2(153), p. S127

DOI: 10.1016/j.cbpa.2009.04.217

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Scaling of sensorimotor control in terrestrial mammals

Journal article published in 2009 by Heather L. More, J. Maxwell Donelan, John R. Hutchinson ORCID, David F. Collins, Douglas J. Weber, J. Max Donelan, Steven K. H. Aung
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Sensorimotor control is greatly affected by two factors--the time it takes for an animal to sense and respond to stimuli (responsiveness), and the ability of an animal to distinguish between sensory stimuli and generate graded muscle forces (resolution). Here, we demonstrate that anatomical limitations force a necessary trade-off between responsiveness and resolution with increases in animal size. To determine whether responsiveness is prioritized over resolution, or resolution over responsiveness, we studied how size influences the physiological mechanisms underlying sensorimotor control. Using both new electrophysiological experiments and existing data, we determined the maximum axonal conduction velocity (CV) in animals ranging in size from shrews to elephants. Over the 100-fold increase in leg length, CV was nearly constant, increasing proportionally with mass to the 0.04 power. As a consequence, larger animals are burdened with relatively long physiological delays, which may have broad implications for their behaviour, ecology and evolution, including constraining agility and requiring prediction to help control movements.