Neural Population Dynamics

Whether it’s picking up a cup or deftly slotting a key into a lock, humans move our arms and hands with ease. While healthy individuals perform these tasks effortlessly – skilled control of the arm and hand is complex and is detrimentally affected by many diseases and injuries. We lack a clear understanding of how neural networks in the brain control these skilled behaviors.

Understanding how these networks control reaching and grasping movements requires techniques that monitor the activity of large neural populations during skilled behaviour. To achieve this, we use high-density probes to record from multiple brain regions simultaneously in cortex and in subcortical areas while non-human primates perform skilled reaching and grasping movements. We also record from populations of motor units in humans and non-human primates to investigate how muscles are coordinated during movement. We are currently working to advance this technology by extending our techniques to allow recording over many weeks, which is a crucial step that will allow us to track how populations of neurons learn and flexibly adapt to new complex motor behaviors.