Among the most compelling outcomes of evolution are the neural mechanisms that support our ability to sense and navigate through a complex environment, and to interact with elements within it as well as with each other. These tasks are controlled by neural systems that guide multiple motor actions with the aid of several sensory modalities. Audition and vision provide information about external elements, while proprioceptive and vestibular inputs convey motion and orientation of the body and its parts. These inputs are processed by the brain, whose reflex, volitional, adaptive, and cognitive abilities in turn control appropriate actions to ensure a lifetime of successful behavior. How these different sensory modalities are integrated to yield meaningful action despite a lifetime of challenges (development, aging, and disease) constitutes a binding topic within our group.
Areas of Research Interest
Specific topics of research focus on three general areas related to how different sensory modalities are combined to govern spatial and interactive behavior:
- multi-sensory interactions and sensori-motor integration
- plasticity, learning and recovery of function
- computational, theoretical, and dynamic modeling approaches to spatial and interactive behavior .
These topics are not mutually exclusive, and are instead synergistic. Our integrative approach recognizes that no sensory or motor modality evolved alone, but rather in tandem to support the complexities of daily activities. Research programs across the Group reflect faculty expertise in auditory, vestibular, visual and somatosensory modalities. Several faculty hold formal training in engineering, mathematics, and physical sciences in addition to neuroscience. These attributes lead naturally to multi-disciplinary approaches that span cognition and behavior, neurophysiology, neuroanatomy, theoretical and computational neurobiology, development and aging, and translational-clinical neurobiology.
Flash video of monkey balancing on branch, jumping, and falling. You can view the video in quicktime format here. The plugin is available at this Quicktime location. |
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Rat whiskers: a section of rat somatosensory cortex stained to show the whisker "barrels", which are the brain circuits that connect to each whisker.
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Faculty
Primary Faculty:
Affiliated Faculty:
- Lizabeth M. Romanski, Ph.D.
- David J. Pinto, Ph.D.
- Martha Johnson Gdowski, Ph.D.
- Edward Freedman, Ph.D.
- Charles J. Duffy, M.D., Ph.D.