Reciprocal effects of adaptation in the brain's motor and sensory systems

这个项目将研究我们如何感知周围的世界以及我们如何在这个世界中移动之间的复杂相互作用。研究人员将测试学习一项新技能如何影响从世界上获得的信息，以及这些信息如何反过来影响运动学习。理解感知和运动控制之间的关系是许多领域的基础。结果可能有助于运动技能训练的创新，包括中风后感觉运动障碍的康复和假肢的开发，以及人体工程学，脑机接口，机器人和远程操作。 该项目将通过鼓励代表性不足的学生考虑STEM职业道路来推进NSF的教育目标。每年将有五名本科生参与研究的各个方面，其中包括至少三名妇女和少数民族通过与印第安纳州大学的项目合作。该项目还将支持研究小组为印第安纳州高中女生开发的神经科学夏令营的扩展。 为了执行一个自愿的运动，例如伸手拿起一支铅笔，大脑必须计划运动参数，例如运动方向和程度。重要的是，手的运动将不会是正确的，除非大脑准确地感知手的位置，通过视觉信息，身体位置感（本体感觉），触觉等的整合获得这种“多感觉整合”是灵活的，可以随着学习而改变，就像运动控制一样，但不知道这些过程是否或如何相互作用。该项目将在行为和神经水平上解决这个问题，并询问多感觉整合和运动控制是否共享一个共同的感觉运动地图（一个将运动命令与感觉后果联系起来的模型）。心理物理学和达到任务的组合将表明多感觉整合和运动学习是否在行为水平上相互影响。使用经颅磁刺激（TMS），研究人员将检查当受试者学习视觉和本体感受之间的新空间关系时，大脑感觉和运动区域之间的连接是否会改变强度;这将表明在神经水平上共享感觉运动地图。研究结果将为多感觉整合和运动学习的感觉运动控制理论框架提供信息。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

This project will investigate the complex interactions between how we perceive the world around us and how we move within that world. The researchers will test how learning a new skill affects the information picked up from the world and how that information, in turn, affects motor learning. Understanding the relationship between perception and movement control is fundamental for many fields. Results could contribute to innovations in motor skill training, including rehabilitation of sensorimotor disorders after stroke and development of prostheses, as well as to ergonomics, brain-machine interfaces, robotics, and tele-operations. The project will advance the NSF's educational goals by encouraging underrepresented students to consider STEM career paths. Five undergraduates per year will be involved in all aspects of the research, including at least three women and minorities through partnerships with programs at Indiana University. The project will also support the expansion of a neuroscience summer camp developed by the study team for Indiana high school girls. To execute a voluntary movement, such as reaching out to pick up a pencil, the brain must plan motor parameters such as movement direction and extent. Importantly, the hand's movement will not be correct unless the brain accurately perceives hand position, obtained through an integration of visual information, body position sense (proprioception), touch, etc. This "multisensory integration" is flexible and can change with learning, just like motor control, but it is not known whether or how these processes interact. The project will address this question at both the behavioral and neural levels and asks whether multisensory integration and motor control share a common sensorimotor map (a model relating motor commands to sensory consequences). A combination of psychophysics and reaching tasks will indicate whether multisensory integration and motor learning affect each other at the behavioral level. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), the researchers will examine whether connections between sensory and motor areas of the brain change in strength when subjects learn a new spatial relationship between vision and proprioception; this would suggest a shared sensorimotor map at the neural level. Results will inform a theoretical framework of sensorimotor control that accounts for both multisensory integration and motor learning.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.