Motor Control: Theories, Experiments, and Applications

Motor control has established itself as an area of scientific research characterized by a multi-disciplinary approach. Scientists working in the area of control of voluntary movements come from different backgrounds including but not limited to physiology, physics, psychology, mathematics, neurology, physical therapy, computer science, robotics, and engineering. One of the factors slowing progress in the area has been the lack of communication among researchers representing all these disciplines. A major objective of the curreent book is to overcome this deficiency and to promote cooperation and mutual understanding among researchers addressing different aspects of the complex phenomenon of motor coordination. The book offers a collection of chapters written by the most prominent researchers in the field. Despite the variety of approaches and methods, all the chapters are united by a common goal: To understand how the central nervous system controls and coordinates natural voluntary movements. This book will be appreciated as a major reference by researchers working in all the subfields that form motor control. It can also be used as a supplementary reading book for graduate courses in such fields as kinesiology, physiology, biomechanics, psychology, robotics, and movement disorders. In one concise volume, Motor Control presents the diversity of the research performed to understand human movement. Deftly organized into 6 primary sections, the editors, Dr Frédéric Danion and Dr Mark Latash, have invited the who's who of specialists to write on: MotorControl: Control of a Complex; Cortical Mechanisms of Motor Control; Lessons from Biomechanics; Lessons from Motor Learning and Using Tools; Lessons from Studies of Aging and MotorDisorders; and Lessons from Robotics Motor Control will quickly become the go-to reference for researchers in this growing field. Researchers from mechanics and engineering to psychology and neurophysiology, as well as clinicians working in motor disorders and rehabilitation, will be equally interested in the pages contained herein.

Table of Contents:
Contributors Section 1: Motor Control: Control of a Complex System Chapter 1: Anticipatory Control of Voluntary Action: Merging the Ideas of Equilibrium-point Control and Synergic Control Mark L. Latash Chapter 2: Object Representations Used in Action and Perception J. Randall Flanagan and Roland S. Johansson Chapter 3: A Canonical-dissipative Approach to Control and Coordination in the Complex System Agent-Task-Environment Till D. Frank, Dobromir G. Dotov, and Michael T. Turvey Chapter 4: Observer-independent Dynamical Measures of Team Coordination and Performance Silke M. Dodel, Ajay S. Pillai, Philip W. Fink, Eric R. Muth, Roy Stripling, Dylan D. Schmorrow, Jeffrey V. Cohn, and Viktor K. Jirsa Chapter 5: Decomposing Muscle Activity in Motor Tasks: Methods and Interpretation Lena H. Ting and Stacie A. Chvatal Section 2: Cortical Mechanisms of Motor Control Chapter 6: Dynamics of Motor Cortical Networks: the Complementarity of Spike Syndrome and Firing Rate Alexa Riehle, Sébastian Roux, Bjørg Elisabeth Kilavik, and Sonja Grün Chapter 7: Proximal-to-distal Sequencing Behavior and Motor Cortex Nicholas G. Hatsopoulos, Leonel Olmedo, and Kazutaka Takahashi Section 3: Lessons from Biomechanics Chapter 8: The Biomechanics of Movement Control Walter Herzog Chapter 9: Control of Locomotion: Lessons from Whole-body Biomechanical Analysis Boris I. Prilutsky and Alexander N. Klishko Chapter 10: Control of Equilibrium in Humans: Sway over Sway Marcos Duarte, Sandra M.S.F. Freitas, and Vladimir Zatsiorsky Section 4: Lessons from Motor Learning and Using Tools Chapter 11: Learning and Switching of Internal Models for Dexterous Tool Use Hiroshi Imamizu Chapter 12: Variability, Noise, and Sensitivity to Error in Learning a Motor Task Dagmar Sternad and Masaki O. Abe Chapter 13: Forecasting the Long-range Consequences of Manual and Tool Use Actions: Neurophysiological, Behavioral, and Computational Considerations Scott H. Frey Chapter 14: Training Skills with Virtual Environments Carlo A. Avizzano, Emanuele Ruffaldi, and Massimo Bergamasco Section 5: Lessons from Studies of Aging and Motor Disorders Chapter 15: Brain and Behavior Deficits in De Novo Parkinson's Disease David E. Vaillancourt and Janey Prodoehl Chapter 16: Emerging Principles in the Learning and Generalization of New Walking Patterns Erin V. L. Vasudevan, Amy J. Bastian, and Gelsy Torres-Oviedo Chapter 17: Aging and Movement Control: The Neural Basis of Age-related Compensatory Recruitment Stephan P. Swinnen, Sofie Heuninckx, Annouchka Van Impe, Daniel J. Goble, James P. Coxon, and Nicole Wenderoth Section 6: Lessons from Robotics Chapter 18: Decoding the Mechanisms of Gait Generation and Gait Transition in the Salamander Using Robots and Mathematical Models Jeremie Knuesel, Jean-Marie Cabelguen, and Auke Ijspeert Chapter 19: Aerial Navigation and Optic Flow Sensing: A Biorobotic Approach Nicolas Franceschini, Frank Ruffier, and Julien Serres Chapter 20: Models and Architectures for Motor Control: Simple or Complex? Emmanuel Guigon Index

About the Author :
Frederic Danion, PhD, works for CNRS at the Movement Sciences Institute in Marseille, France. Since 2001, he has held the position of "Chargé de Recherche" for the CNRS at the Movement and Perception Institute in Marseille . Within this institute, he joined the Theoretical Neuroscience Group directed by Viktor Jirsa. The goal of this team is to better understand the brain processes underlying human movement. More specifically, his main project deals with the predictive mechanisms engaged in grip force control during object manipulation tasks. Mark L. Latash, PhD, is a Distinguished Professor of Kinesiology at Penn State University.Mark Latash is a Distinguished Professor of Kinesiology at Penn State. His research interests are focused on the control and coordination of human voluntary movements. He is the author of three single-authored book, seven edited books, and over 250 journal papers. Mark Latash served as the Founding Editor of the journal "Motor Control" (1996-2007) and as President of the International Society of Motor Control (2001-2005). He is a recipient of the Bernstein Prize in motor control.

Review :
"Motor Control will quickly become the go-to reference for researchers in this growing field. Researchers from mechanics and engineernig to pscyhology and neurophysiology, as well as clinicians working in motor disorders and rehabilitation, will be equally interested in the pages contained herein." -- Anticancer Research "Motor Control will quickly become the go-to reference for researchers in this growing field. Researchers from mechanics and engineering to psychology and neurophysiology, as well as clinicians working in motor disorders and rehabilitation, will be equally interested in the pages contained herein." -- Anticancer Research