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SUMMARY:Conserved principles of movement generation - Mark Churchland\, St
 anford University
DTSTART:20110211T130000Z
DTEND:20110211T140000Z
UID:TALK28920@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:John Mollon
DESCRIPTION:Many studies\, across many species\, have examined the neural 
 underpinnings of rhythmic motor behavior. Yet for the primate\, most studi
 es have focused on neural activity during discrete reaching movements.  Ac
 cordingly\, studies of primate motor cortex have focused on how neural act
 ivity relates to quantities – direction\, velocity – that naturally pa
 rameterize reaching movements.  Despite that focus\, motor cortex response
 s remain poorly explained by all current hypotheses regarding what activit
 y might be tuned for.  Employing novel theoretical and experimental approa
 ches\, we find that cortical responses during reaching exhibit many of the
  fundamental properties seen during rhythmic movement in simpler organisms
 .  These findings suggest that motor cortex should be thought of not as a 
 system for representing movement parameters\, but as an engine for generat
 ing movement.  That neural engine appears to exploit conserved principles 
 that persist across widely disparate species and varieties of movement.
LOCATION:Kenneth Craik Room\, Craik-Marshall Building\, Downing Site
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