Neural control of dexterity: what has been achieved?

This chapter reviews progress made in our understanding of the neural control of dexterity. It stresses the increasing benefit derived by uniting the different disciplines concerned with the study of the hand. It highlights the study of natural movements and of the importance of tackling the function of the interface between the neural control system and the biomechanical apparatus of the hand and arm. It also highlights the distributed nature of the control system, its utilisation of complex spatio-temporal representations and its dependence on sensory input. It concludes by pointing out the lessons that have been learned from two fields of work: the development of motor skill and the comparative study of dexterity in different primate species