NSF-BII: Integrative Movement Sciences Institute

肌肉是一种活跃的组织，它驱动着动物非凡的敏捷性，使它们在具有挑战性的环境中拥有速度、耐力和机动性。了解肌肉如何控制运动对动物的表现和进化，以及维持人类一生的健康至关重要。然而，目前的模型无法准确预测复杂环境中快速、不稳定运动中的肌肉功能。目前的理解受限于各个领域之间的隔离，导致分子和组织特征的“自下而上”的还原论方法与关注动物行为的“自上而下”的有机方法之间存在知识差距。综合运动科学研究所（IMSI）将通过连接“自下而上”和“自上而下”的方法，将机械、神经和感觉系统的贡献整合到运动控制中，从而弥合这些差距。一个由全国21个机构组成的跨学科团队将领导科学研究和培训，以整合从分子到生物体、从纳秒到几代人的跨结构水平和时间尺度的调查。IMSI合作网络将在跨学科团队合作、数学建模、数据分析和开放数据共享方面培训科学家。IMSI活动将推动生物物理学、生理学、生物力学、神经科学和工程学的创新。了解敏捷运动的肌肉控制在生物技术和生物经济中有着广泛的应用，可以通过设计运动疗法、康复计划和活动辅助装置来实现。动态肌肉功能是综合理解运动的重要基础，但预测快速和不稳定条件下肌肉力量输出仍然是一个基本挑战。IMSI将通过批判性地检查当前方法的假设，开发新的实验和模型来连接“自下而上”和“自上而下”的观点，并构建一个动态肌肉运动范式来改变基础科学，临床和技术应用，从而整合跨尺度的肌肉运动控制。交叉主题包括不稳定和扰动运动，多尺度建模，并统一无脊椎动物，脊椎动物和人类的研究。研究核心包括：(1)内在肌肉动力学与流变学和x射线衍射实验；(2)嵌入式神经机械控制，研究内在力学和感觉运动网络如何塑造不稳定运动；(3)弹性和多功能性，以确定肌肉骨骼特性和能力的变化如何驱动全身运动；(4)风险-奖励和学习，以确定在导航环境风险和奖励时，经验如何导致运动优化；(5)运动系统的多样性和收敛性，以表征动态肌肉功能的进化。IMSI的教师拥有从肌肉蛋白质的分子生物物理学到动物生态学和人机交互的专业知识。以团队为基础的科学、近同伴指导和共同监督结构将促进社区发展，并为受训者提供广泛的导师网络，从主要的本科院校到研究密集型院校，形成一条从本科生到教师的培训管道。IMSI将通过建立动态肌肉功能和运动神经肌肉控制的新基础来改变运动科学，该基础集成了跨学科，有机体和结构尺度。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Muscle is the active tissue that drives the remarkable agility of animals, enabling feats of speed, endurance, and maneuverability in challenging environments. Understanding how muscle controls movement is essential for animal performance and evolution, and for maintaining human health throughout life. However, muscle function during fast, unsteady motions in complex environments cannot be accurately predicted by current models. Current understanding is limited by isolation among fields, resulting in knowledge gaps between “bottom-up” reductionist approaches that characterize molecules and tissues and “top down” organismal approaches that focus on animal behavior. The Integrative Movement Sciences Institute (IMSI) will bridge these gaps by connecting “bottom-up” and “top-down” approaches to integrate the contributions of mechanical, neural, and sensory systems to movement control. An interdisciplinary team spanning 21 institutions across the country will lead scientific research and training to integrate investigations across structural levels and timescales from molecules to organisms and nanoseconds to generations. The IMSI collaborative network will train scientists in interdisciplinary teamwork, mathematical modeling, data analysis, and open data sharing. IMSI activities will drive innovation in biophysics, physiology, biomechanics, neuroscience, and engineering. Understanding the muscular control of agile movement has wide-reaching applications in bio-technology and the bio-economy through design of movement therapies, rehabilitation programs and mobility assistance devices.Dynamic muscle function forms a critical foundation for an integrative understanding of movement, yet it remains a fundamental challenge to predict muscle force output in fast and unsteady conditions. IMSI will integrate muscular control of movement across scales by critically examining assumptions of current approaches, developing new experiments and models to bridge “bottom-up” and “top-down” perspectives, and constructing a dynamic muscle movement paradigm to transform basic science, clinical and technical applications. Cross-cutting themes include unsteady and perturbed movements, multiscale modeling, and unifying invertebrate, vertebrate, and human studies. Research Cores include: (1) intrinsic muscle dynamics with rheological and X-ray diffraction experiments at nanometer to organismal scales; (2) embedded neuromechanical control to investigate how intrinsic mechanics and sensorimotor networks shape unsteady movement; (3) resilience and versatility to determine how variation in musculoskeletal properties and capacity drive whole-body movement; (4) risk-reward and learning, to determine how experience leads to movement optimization when navigating environmental risks and rewards; and (5) diversity and convergence in motor systems to characterize evolution of dynamic muscle function. IMSI faculty have expertise ranging from molecular biophysics of muscle proteins to animal ecology and human-machine interaction. The team-based science, near-peer mentorship and co-supervisory structure will foster community and provide trainees with a wide mentor network from a range of institutions from primarily undergraduate institutions to research intensive institutions, creating a training pipeline from undergraduates to faculty. IMSI will transform movement sciences by building a new foundation for dynamic muscle function and neuromuscular control of movement that integrates across disciplines, organisms, and structural scales.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.