Our Research

Cortical and Biomechanical Control of Orofacial Sensorimotor Behavior

At the intersection of neuroscience and biomechanics

Nothing happens until something moves, as Albert Einstein once said. And as I watch the graceful leap of a ballerina, the amazing finger coordination of a concert pianist, the great precision in timing and force of a tennis player, I often wonder why we move the way we move. It is the experience of this mystery that has motivated me to study the neuronal basis of sensorimotor control. And after all these years, I am ever more astonished to realize that these highly coordinated and skilled motions are a consequence of efficient “networking” among populations of cortical neurons.

Over many decades, the study of sensorimotor control of human behavior has been approached at different levels, e.g., biomechanics , neurophysiology, and computational modeling. Although each of these levels has provided unique contributions, the challenge remains to find a unifying elements for the proposed notions and theories, observed behavior, and the neurophysiology of the sensorimotor system.

–Fritzie Arce-McShane, PhD