Fun with motor nerves

[Febrifuge]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

While sitting in your chair, raise your right foot off the floor a little and make circular motions, in a clockwise direction.

While you repeat that motion, with your right hand trace the shape of the number 6 in the air.

See what your right foot does...

.

.

.

.

.

In most people, the right foot changes direction and starts moving counter-clockwise.

It's fun for parties, but could someone venture an explanation as to what's going on neurologically? I'm curious to hear.

Feb
ER Tech nerd

 

[tofurious]

You could do the same thing by raising both of your hands up in the air and drawing circles (or complex patterns) with your dominant hand. It's just the corpus callosum letting the other side of the brain know what's going on. Frequently you have to suppress the other side from doing this, and in some people with stroke or other degenerative conditions the inhibitory circuits are off and they present with the alien limb phenomenon.