Program in Neuroscience

About

When we encounter a perturbation in the environment or our body—reaching to grasp an object underwater, for example—there are significant challenges the brain must overcome. Light is bent by water, so we see the underwater hand in a different location from where we feel it proprioceptively. While initially movement errors occur in a situation like this, a healthy person quickly learns to compensate. This compensation can take different forms, including motor adaptation, changes in multisensory processing, or both.

Failure to compensate for a perturbation can result in movement difficulties, yet little is known about the functional relationships or neural bases of these processes. In addition to providing direction in rehabilitation of patient groups with sensorimotor deficits, this knowledge would help answer fundamental questions about how sensory and motor processes interact in the brain. I use behavioral and neurophysiological techniques to study the neural basis of these compensatory sensorimotor processes in healthy adults.