Few of us think about muscle feeling and give it exceptional importance. And meanwhile, thanks to him, even having closed his eyes, a person unmistakably feels in what position in spatial relation his hand is - it is bent or lifted up, in what position is his body - is he sitting or standing. Such regulation of movements is caused by the work of special proprioreceptors located in the muscles, joint bags, ligaments, and skin. Let's take a closer look at what muscle feeling is.
Special form of cognition
The complex of sensations that arise due to the functioning of the muscular system of the body is called muscle sensation. This concept was introduced into everyday life by I.M.Sechenov. The scientist argued that, for example, when walking a person, not only his sensations from the contact of the leg with the surface, but also the so-called muscular sensations that accompany the contraction of the corresponding organs are important.
Interpretation of the question of what muscle feeling is, I. M. Sechenov was given as a special form of human knowledge of the spatio-temporal relations of his environment.
The scientist attached a special purpose to muscular feeling in the regulation of movements. To him and his vision, he assigned the role of the closest regulators, thanks to which a person is able to compare objects, perform simple operations of analysis and synthesis.
Dark feeling
The muscular feeling of a person was called "dark" and for a rather long period of time was not separated from the sense of touch, calling both concepts haptics. So, psychologist William James emphasized the extreme uncertainty of this concept. Since it is not clear what this is about - about the residual sensations from a pose or movement or some kind of efferent impulses sent by the brain.
Indeed, in most cases, a person is not aware of the work of muscles, but only movement. The sensations experienced when moving, maintaining a certain posture, tension of the vocal cords or gestures are almost not recognized.
Kinesthesia
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the question of what muscle sensation is still on the agenda was still relevant. and how to determine it. The neurologist Henry-Charlton Bastian, this concept, or, as he wrote, “feelings of movement”, it was customary to express the word “kinesthesia”.
Kinesthesia was understood as the ability of the brain to continuously recognize the movement and position of the muscles of the body and its various parts. This ability was achieved thanks to proprioreceptors, which send impulses to the brain from joints, tendons, muscles.
The term entered the scientific language quite firmly and even gave rise to several derivative concepts, such as kinesthetic empathy, kinesthetic pleasure, kinesthetic imagination, which means release from the usual and normative ways of moving and the ability to create new motor "events".
Proprioreceptors
How to understand what muscle feeling is?
Awareness of the position and movement of the muscles of the body and its various parts is associated with the work of special proprioreceptors - nerve endings located in the musculo-articular apparatus. Their excitation during stretching or contraction of the muscles by impulses is sent to the receptors along nerve fibers in the central nervous system. This allows a person, without controlling his movements with vision, to change the position of the body or posture, makes it possible to accurately touch the tip of the nose with the movement of a finger.
Such signals are very important for the orientation of the body in space. Without them, a person would not be able to carry out any coordinated movement. The muscular feeling in the work of people of such professions as a surgeon, driver, violinist, pianist, draftsman, turner and many others plays an important role. Special control pulses give them the ability to produce subtle and precise movements.
A person, being conscious, constantly feels the passive or active position of his body parts and the movement of the joints. He accurately determines the resistance to each of his movements. Together, such abilities are called proprioreception, since the stimulation of the corresponding proprioreceptors (receptors) does not come from the external environment, but from the body itself. Often they are called deep sensitivity. This is due to the fact that most of the receptors are located in the extracutaneous structures: in the muscles, joints and their capsules, tendons, ligaments, periosteum, fascia.
Muscular-articular feeling, thanks to proprioreceptors, allows a person to have a sense of the position of his body in space, as well as a sense of strength and movement. The first is practically not subject to adaptation and carries information about the angle at which a particular joint is currently located, and, accordingly, the position of all limbs. A sense of movement allows you to understand the direction and speed of movement of the joints. In this case, a person with muscle contraction equally perceives an active and passive action. The threshold for the perception of movements depends on their amplitude and on the rate of change of the angle of flexion of the joint.
A sense of strength allows you to evaluate the muscle strength that is necessary for movement or to hold the joints in a certain position.
The value of muscle feeling
For a person, muscular-articular feeling is of no small importance. It allows you to correctly find objects and determine the position of the body in space with eyes closed. Muscular sensation helps to determine the mass and volume of objects, produce a subtle analysis of movements, their coordination. Its value especially increases with a loss of vision or its loss.
Violation of the muscular-articular feeling, dysfunction of the motor analyzer leads to the fact that a person loses the accuracy of movements. His gait becomes shaky and uncertain, he loses his balance. In people with similar disorders, when oriented in space, the function of the so-called nearest regulator is assumed by vision.
Muscular feeling in a state of weightlessness
There is no muscular feeling in humans in space flights. In a state of weightlessness, in which the force of interaction of bodies with a support is absent, the orientation of spatial relations is perceived through visual perception and visual assessment.
The experience of orbital flights and access to the unsupported space of astronauts showed that a person is able to adapt to such unusual conditions for him. Between the senses he has other relationships. The main importance is acquired by tactile, muscular-articular sensations, vision, a slightly lesser effect is attributed to signaling from the otolithic device. Such a functional analyzer system is unstable.
In future flights of astronauts and their further separation in unsupported space, the possibility of disorientation and spatial illusions is not ruled out. That is why the problem of human orientation in outer space is quite relevant.