Biomechanics of Anuran Tongues

作为功能形态学家和神经生物学家，pi希望预测肌肉激活模式应该如何变化，不仅当个体执行不同的任务时，而且在其生长过程中，以及在进化过程中身体比例的变化。这些任务目前超出了pi的范围，因为肌肉激活的模式受到许多因素的影响，包括肌肉的收缩特性，它们的机械优势，节段的质量和长度，以及运动的力，速度和持续时间。揭示肌肉活化的复杂性是有机体生物学的一个重要基础问题。该研究的目标是开发青蛙的猎物捕获作为研究这一问题的模型系统。在这项提案中，pi寻求资金来开发生物力学模型，以预测体型和形态进化如何影响肌肉激活模式；以及用于修正模型和检验其预测的实证研究。这些研究将对理论框架的发展做出重大贡献，在这个理论框架中，体型和形态进化对肌肉激活模式的影响可以被预测和最终测试。

NISHIKAWA 9809942 As functional morphologists and neurobiologists, the PIs wish to predict how patterns of muscle activation should change, not only when an individual performs different tasks but also during its lifetime as it grows, and as body proportions change during evolution. These tasks are currently beyond the PIs reach because patterns of muscle activation are affected by a large number of factors, including the contractile properties of the muscles, their mechanical advantage, the masses and lengths of the segments, and the force, velocity and duration of movement. Unraveling the complexity of muscle activation is an important basic problem of organismal biology. The goal of the proposed research is to develop prey capture in frogs as a model system for investigating this problem. In this proposal, the PIs seek funds to develop biornechanical models that will predict how body size and morphological evolution affect patterns of muscle activation; and for empirical studies that will be used to modify the models and test their predictions. These studies will contribute significantly to the development of a theoretical framework in which the effects of body size and morphological evolution on patterns of muscle activation can be predicted and ultimately tested.