A computational approach to the neural control of limbs

Abstract: Understanding the coevolutionary process that led to organisms as we know them is critical to understanding their function, dysfunction and rehabilitation. In recent decades, the perspective that muscle redundancy is the central problem of motor control has dominated this scientific endeavor. Therefore the "problem" the brain solves is cast explicitly and/or implicitly as one of neural computation needed to select viable solutions from the many allowed by the redundancy/adaptability that comes from having "too many" redundant or overcomplete muscles or joints. However valuable and informative, this perspective is also paradoxical with respect to the evolutionary process, the clinical reality that even mild injury leads to measurable dysfunction, and a rigorous mechanical analysis of complex systems and complex behavior. Taking an approach based on mechanics, computational motor control, mathematics and pathology, I will describe a perspective for the study of sensorimotor function that begins to resolve these apparent paradoxes. Namely, that vertebrates have barely enough muscles to meet the mechanical requirements of real-world ecological tasks. 

Short Bio: He attended Swarthmore College from 1984-88 where he obtained a BS degree in Engineering. After spending a year in the Indian subcontinent as a Thomas J Watson Fellow, he joined Queen's University in Ontario and worked with Dr. Carolyn Small. The research for his Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering at Queen's focused on developing non-invasive methods to estimate the kinematic integrity of the wrist joint.

In 1991, he joined the doctoral program in the Design Division of the Mechanical Engineering Department at Stanford University. He worked with Dr. Felix Zajac developing a realistic biomechanical model of the human digits. This research, done at the Rehabilitation R & D Center in Palo Alto, focused on predicting optimal coordination patterns of finger musculature during static force production.

After completing his doctoral degree in 1997, he joined the core faculty of the Biomechanical Engineering Division at Stanford University as a Research Associate and Lecturer. In 1999, he joined the faculty of the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Cornell University as Assistant Professor, and was tenured in 2005. In 2007, he joined the faculty at the Department of Biomedical Engineering, and the Division of Biokinesiology & Physical Therapy at the University of Southern California as Associate Professor; where he was promoted to Full Professor in 2011. In 2013 he was elected Senior Member of the IEEE, and in 2014 to the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineers.