Integrating across behaviors and timescales to understand the neural control of movement

The nervous system evolved to enable navigation throughout the environment in the pursuit of resources. Evolutionarily newer structures allowed increasingly complex adaptations but necessarily added redundancy. A dominant view of movement neuroscientists is that there is a one-to-one mapping between brain region and function. However, recent experimental data is hard to reconcile with the most conservative interpretation of this framework, suggesting a degree of functional redundancy during the performance of well-learned, constrained behaviors. This apparent redundancy likely stems from the bidirectional interactions between the various cortical and subcortical structures involved in motor control. We posit that these bidirectional connections enable flexible interactions across structures that change depending upon behavioral demands, such as during acquisition, execution or adaptation of a skill. Observing the system across both multiple actions and behavioral timescales can help isolate the functional contributions of individual structures, leading to an integrated understanding of the neural control of movement. •Investigating constrained behavior during a single point in time obscures the unique contributions of different brain regions.•Bidirectional connections enable flexible interactions between regions, providing a substrate for partial functional redundancy.•Redundancy can be expressed in several ways, including several structures subserving similar functions at a point in time.•Theories and experiments that integrate across behaviors and timescales may help untangle unique functional contributions.