RAndy:> I don't think the muscles themselves have a memory. To contract they need to be enervated, what has the memory is the cns acting in repetitive patterns which causes the same muscular activity to take place over and over again.<
Omtara:>All muscles have a memory of their own. That is how we learn to drive a car or ride a bike - the body remembers what it has to do and it does them without us having to consciously tell it to do so.<
According to what I can recall from my college classes, even the "arc-reflex" (is that the term in English?), although not requiring the involvement of the brain, still needs neurons connected to the spinal cord to take place. Therefore, there doesn't seem to be muscles with "a memory of their own" whatsoever. Driving a car and riding a bike are just examples of how the lower parts of the brain, not the "body" or the "muscles", can automatize some activities without the direct involvement of the cortex, where the conscious, volitive activities take place.
Also, that kind of "programming" can be easily overridden by further programming, a.k.a. exercises and rehearsals, although it's true some people are more resistant to "re-programming" than others. I just don't believe the resistant type would ever succeed in becoming a professional opera singer in the first place, as before having a role their singing-related muscles would have proved to be very flexible.
Caio
|