| NSF Org: |
BCS Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | August 13, 2012 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | January 15, 2015 |
| Award Number: | 1230493 |
| Award Instrument: | Continuing Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Betty Tuller
btuller@nsf.gov (703)292-7238 BCS Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences SBE Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences |
| Start Date: | August 15, 2012 |
| End Date: | July 31, 2016 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $227,029.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $249,179.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2013 = $153,692.00 FY 2014 = $10,670.00 FY 2015 = $11,480.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
3400 N CHARLES ST BALTIMORE MD US 21218-2608 (443)997-1898 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
MD US 21218-2682 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): |
Perception, Action & Cognition, Robust Intelligence |
| Primary Program Source: |
01001314DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01001415DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01001516DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT |
| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.075 |
ABSTRACT
Walking for a healthy adult seems easy. However, underlying this apparent simplicity our nervous system is performing a task of astounding complexity. Using sensory information about the body's movement, the nervous system coordinates the activation of dozens of muscles so that we stably and efficiently move through our environment. For example, if our nervous system senses that our foot will strike the ground too soon, it will adjust muscle activations so we do not stumble and fall. In this project, an interdisciplinary team of investigators aims to uncover the rules the nervous system uses to make such adjustments. Using a general computational and theoretical framework taken from engineering (used to understand, for example, the rhythmic control of the angle of attack of rotating helicopter blades), the method depends on gently perturbing a person's senses and body in various ways and observing how the nervous system adjusts muscle activations in response. The investigators will first test their methods on a simpler type of rhythmic movement, repetitive hitting of a virtual ball with a paddle, then extend the findings to coordination during walking.
By constructing a general approach to understanding the control of rhythmic movements, including swimming in fish, flying in insects and birds, and walking in people and robots, the investigators may provide a foundation for understanding how control breaks down for people with neurological conditions such as stroke and incomplete spinal cord injury. This has the potential to advance neuromuscular rehabilitation and the design of assistive devices.
[Co-funded by CISE and SBE]
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
From heartbeats to locomotion, rhythmic dynamics are fundamental to many scientific fields. The intellectual merit of the work is that it provides new methods to analyze the dynamics of locomotion and other rhythmic behaviors. Specifically, we have developed a new set of engineering analysis techniques. We applied these new techniques by performing safe, non-invasive experiments on humans as they perform a rhythmic task (such as juggling in our virtual reality setup, or walking on a motorized, instrumented treadmill) and made several new discoveries in human sensorimotor control. These findings were published in peer-reviewed highly respected journals. As one example, we discovered that "haptic" (touch) information can be used by the nervous system to improve timing during rhythmic behavior. There are several broader impacts of the work. First, we have recently begun to apply the new tools to other disciplines, such as active sensing, an example of which is when you move your hand back and forth over a surface to sense its texture; another cross-disciplinary example is the analysis of cell-cycle dynamics, which share the rhythmic structure of walking and juggling and we may be able to apply these new tools to provide deeper more quantitative analysis. Second, the project has trained two undergraduates two undergraduate students and two PhD students. These students received significant multidisciplinary training at the intersection of engineering and biology.
Last Modified: 10/30/2016
Modified by: Noah J Cowan
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