Research summary
Humans can learn a nearly endless repertoire of movements. We learn motor skills, such as walking, running, grabbing, kicking, throwing and dancing. We can learn fine motor skills, such as those needed to play an instrument or a sport. Some of us may even need to relearn how to move following an illness, accident or disease.
Dr. Emily Oby, Canada Research Chair in Non-Human Primate Models of Health and Disease, is combining neurophysiology, neural engineering and machine learning to uncover the details of how the brain controls and learns movement patterns. She and her research team are studying what happens in the brain during motor control and motor learning that enables us to accelerate learning or recover from neurological issues. They are also developing brain-machine interfaces with the potential to restore movement for people with spinal cord injury or who have suffered a stroke.