How Bizarre We Are!

Let us look at human movement. Human anatomy is patently complex, and only a sufficiently sophisticated brain (and spinal cord, it turns out) allows us to control our bodies. This heady mix of a complex warrior with a yet more complex charioteer creates curious unintended (?) consequences. We will gallop through rudimentary muscle (and perhaps neuro) physiology, witness some unexpected human motor behavior, and then arrive at current research in human prehension.

Object manipulation in its fullest expression is the hallmark of humankind. We wonder about the nature of the control processes that lead to the dexterity in the human hand despite its complex anatomical structure. We will first look at the interplay between wrist action and object grasping, and then we will see how putative motor control variables for vertical oscillation of a hand-held object can be extracted from the measurements of hand movement and fingertip forces.

Lecturer: Satyajit Ambike.

Venue: Noumenon Multiphysics.

List of lectures:

This lecture series occurred in the past.