BII Design: Integrative Movement Sciences Institute (IMSI)

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Animals move with superb agility, achieving exceptional athletic feats of endurance, speed and rapid maneuvering through complex terrain. This requires precise coordination of muscle contraction, sensing and neural control in response to rapidly changing interactions with the physical environment. Modern science has revealed increasing detail about the molecular mechanisms, growth and function of discrete tissues and systems such as muscle, neurons and bone. Yet a pronounced gap exists in understanding how these systems work together to achieve agile whole-body movement. The Integrative Movement Sciences Institute (IMSI) will bring to together 26 faculty from 21 institutions, with collective expertise across the spectrum of movement sciences from molecular biophysics of muscle to human rehabilitation and human-machine interaction. IMSI will create a nationwide collaboration network and training pipeline from undergraduate to faculty levels, to transform our field by integrating understanding of muscle function and movement from molecules to behavior. IMSI will train the next generation of scientists in effective cross-disciplinary communication, team-based science, mathematical modeling, data analysis and open data sharing. Research activities will focus on development of integrated models of movement with a wide range of applications for human exercise sciences, rehabilitation, and mobility assistance, including the design and control of prostheses, exoskeletons, and biologically-inspired legged robots.A pronounced gap exists between ‘top-down’ approaches that focus on whole-animal behavior but lack insight into underlying mechanisms and ‘bottom-up’ approaches that identify molecular and biophysical mechanisms but lack insight into their contributions to behavior. Muscle forms a critical link in integrating mechanics and control of movement across scales. This project will fund communication, training and collaborative research development activities over 12-months to establish the Integrative Movement Sciences Institute (IMSI) at the University of California Irvine (UCI), with 26 faculty from 21 academic institutions. IMSI ‘Design’ activities include a workshop in Spring 2021 and a 4-week long Summer Research Institute in Summer 2021. Workshop activities will encourage thinking across disciplines and developing effective team-based collaborative approaches to overcome the challenges that currently inhibit integration across fields and organizational scales. The workshop will consolidate IMSI research themes and develop proposals for IMSI Summer Research Institute activities. The Summer Research Institute will be a 4-week event for enrolled trainees (undergraduates, graduate students and postdocs working in near-peer mentoring teams), with visiting PIs joining for one week to collaboratively lead seminars and short lab courses on topics designed to build interdisciplinary partnerships and integrate across scales. IMSI will focus on development of computationally tractable and predictive modeling tools for integrative neuromechanics of movement. These tools have potential to transform numerous fields— enabling neuroscientists, biologists, clinicians and biomedical engineers to ask questions about integrative whole organism behavior, sensorimotor control, musculoskeletal function and neuromuscular plasticity.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.