Biomechanics of Anuran Tongues

西川9809942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，不仅当一个人执行不同的任务时，而且在其一生中随着其成长，以及随着身体比例在进化过程中的变化。这些任务目前超出了PIs的能力范围，因为肌肉激活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，以及运动的力量、速度和持续时间。解开肌肉激活的复杂性是生物生物学的一个重要基本问题。拟议研究的目标是开发在青蛙中捕获猎物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，该模型将预测身体尺寸和形态演变如何影响肌肉激活模式；以及用于修改模型和测试其预测的实证研究。这些研究将极大地促进理论框架的发展，在该框架中，可以预测并最终检验身体大小和形态演变对肌肉激活模式的影响。

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.