What is fictive locomotion?

Answer 1

Fictive locomotion is motor movements that do not require any feedback. Typically, when you make a motor movement like walking, it requires sensory information through vision and proprioception to help regulate where, how, and when to walk. In other words, you see where you can place your foot and you receive sensory information regarding when and how hard your feet are hitting the ground. Fictive locomotion is motor movements that do not require any of this. Fictive locomotion is typically artificially created. For example, Bem, Orsal, and Cabelguen (1993) used electrical stimulation in specific brain regions in immobilized rats to show that this creates fictive locomotor patterns in the hindlimb muscle nerves.