In general, the performance of everyday perceptual-motor actions, such as grasping a mug, walking across different surfaces, jumping over an obstacle, catching or kicking a ball and talking to other persons, is reliable and efficient, and involves a high degree of coordination between the various parts of the human body (muscles, joints, limbs) as well as between limb movements and the environment. The goal of the research on motor control is to gain insight into how this functionally effective coordination comes about and how it changes adaptively in response to changes in the human motor apparatus (e.g., fatigue, injury) and the environment, as well as a result of learning, rehabilitation and aging.
The nervous system plays a crucial role in bringing about coordinated movement, but in order to understand motor control it is not sufficient to study neural structures and neural activity alone. The mechanical, physiological and anatomical constraints imposed by the musculo-skeletal system have to be taken into account as well, together with the constraints imposed by the environment and the task. Thus, a primary goal of the research on movement coordination is to identify the contributions of sensory, neural, muscular and skeletal subsystems of the human motor system to the production of coordinated movement in specific tasks and task environments.
This broad objective is pursued by combining neurobiological, biomechanical and behavioural approaches. The neurobiological part of the research focuses on the role of the higher neural control centres (cortex cerebrum, basal ganglia and cerebellum), brain stem and spinal cord and peripheral reflex organizations. In the biomechanical part of the research feed-forward musculo-skeletal models are developed and simulated to model the performance of complex, multi-joint movements in interaction with the environment (e.g., exerting a force on the environment in a specific direction). Finally, the behavioural research is concerned with the use of perceptual information, the effects of specific movement parameters (e.g., speed, amplitude, and frequency) on the stability of patterns of coordinated movements, and the acquisition of perceptual-motor skills in learning and development. These topics are being studied in healthy people of all ages and in patients with specific (neurological) movement disorders. The latter research focuses on disorders of balance or gait as seen in neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease and other neurological impairments.

subprogrammes:

TC1: Coordination dynamics
TC2: Perceptual-motor control: development, learning and performance
TC3: Biophysics and psychophysics of perceptuo-motor control
TC4: Disorders of central motor function and rehabilitation