Guest Speaker:
Dr Samuel Sober, Associate Professor, Department of Biology, Emory College of Arts and Sciences, USA
Title:
Spiking codes for skilled motor control
Abstract:
Neurons coordinate patterns of muscle activity to produce an astonishing variety of behaviours. However, the biological and computational bases of sensorimotor control remain mysterious, in part due to a lack of experimental hardware and computational frameworks for examining motor signals. To address these challenges, my group combines neurophysiological, computational, and engineering approaches to understand motor control across species and behaviours.
My talk will provide an overview of three projects that seek to expand our understanding of the neural control of complex movements. First, studies of vocal production in songbirds reveal how precise neural and muscular codes regulate expert vocal performance and emerge during sensorimotor learning as young birds first learn to sing. Second, to accelerate these projects in our own group and across the motor neuroscience community, we have created electrode tools and analysis pipelines for measuring and/or manipulating muscle activity at cellular resolution (single motor units) in songbirds, insects, mice, rats, and primates. We are currently disseminating these resources to the global research community via CAMBER (camber.emory.edu).
Finally, I will survey our recent work on the neuromuscular control of mouse locomotion, which quantifies how the nervous system flexibly modulates limb movements across different terrains and walking speeds.
Biography:
Sam Sober is an associate professor of Biology at Emory University and the Director of the Center for Advanced Motor BioEngineering and Research (CAMBER). Dr. Sober earned a B.A. in Neuroscience and Behavior from Wesleyan University and Ph.D. from UC San Francisco in the lab of Phillip Sabes.
His research interests focus on understanding how the nervous system successfully produces appropriate patterns of muscle activation, resulting in the desired behavioral output. His research on singing behavior in finches and forelimb behavior in rodents investigates the relationship between these very different levels of description—neural activity, muscular activation, and task performance—by using a range of techniques to describe how neural circuits drive complex behavior and are modified by sensorimotor experience.
Sam is a member of the:
- Emory Neuroscience graduate program
- Joint Emory University and Georgia Tech Biomedical Engineering PhD program
- Georgia Tech and Emory Computational Neural-Engineering Training program (CNTP)
- Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology (NBB) undergraduate program
Departmental Host:
Dr Juan Alvaro Gallego
PLEASE NOTE:
- Refreshments will be served immediately after this seminar in room U1205.
- Efforts will be made to record this seminar if the speaker permits.