All living beings perform movements in a non-voluntary way. This phenomenon is called motility. This is an appropriate term from biology that relates to the spontaneous and automatic movements that occur in any living organism, such as a cell , an internal organ such as a mammal’s intestine, or a muscle-type spasm.
digestive motility in humans
The set of movements that occur inside the digestive tract is known as digestive motility. There are two types of digestive contractions: tonic and phasic. The former are contractions that are sustained over time and can be of high or low pressure ( sphincter movement is an example of high pressure and movement of the colon or gastric juices is an example of low pressure). Phasic contractions are variable and occur over different periods (the interdigestive period and the digestive phase).
Brain motility in Parkinson’s patients
The brain damage that occurs among people affected by Parkinson’s negatively affects their mobility. To reduce these effects there are treatments designed to restore normal body movement. In this sense, neurologists are researching techniques to recover neuronal motility and reverse degenerative processes.
in sperm
On their way to the egg, sperm make movements with variable intensity. Those with low motility cannot reach the egg to be fertilized. In this sense, semen mobility is a determining factor for pregnancy to occur. In vitro fertilization techniques analyze all factors related to sperm movements, such as progressive mobility, type of movement and speed.
In relation to the view
With our eyes we perform movements voluntarily. However, certain eye movements occur completely unintentionally. Both types of movements depend on the neuronal circuits of the brain . Automatic eye movements aim to compensate for head movements.
During some phases of sleep the eyes also move involuntarily. Specifically, this occurs in so-called REM, whose acronym in English refers to the rapid movement of the eyes during the deep sleep phase (in the non-REM phase of sleep there is no eye movement at all).
