Sensory-Motor Neuroscience – SMN

Topics

• Structure and function of neural systems involved in voluntary and involuntary movement, including neural control and biomechanics of balance, posture, and stance in human and animal models.
• Cortical control of reaching and grasping, motor learning.
• Studies to use brain machine interfaces or neuroprosthetics in order to understand the brain control of movement
• Investigations of sensory-motor control based on invasive recordings and brain stimulation in human subjects.
• Computational and statistical models of sensory and motor control.
• Neuronal and circuit control of vertebrate and invertebrate locomotion, including studies of motor central pattern generators, respiratory central pattern generators, and oral motor function.
• Neural control of sequential and learned movements; movement decision making.
• Integration and coordination of sensory and motor signals, including neural and biomechanical mechanisms of active whisking, escape behaviors, proprioception, birdsong vocal motor control, and learning.
• Vestibular systems studies including vestibulo-ocular reflex, vestibulo-spinal reflex, dizziness, and spatial orientation in human and animal models.
• Integration of sensory inputs and action systems, multisensory integration involving vestibular or proprioceptive senses.
• Disorders of motor control, complex and learned motor behavior in the absence of primary motor deficit, e.g. apraxia. Disorders of motor control involving the basal ganglia (e.g., dystonia) when the focus is on the basic mechanisms.
• Somatosensation; neurobiology of touch, vibrotactile and temperature sensation.
• Spatial navigation when the focus is on sensory integration

Shared Interests and Overlaps

There are shared interests with Motor Function, Speech and Rehabilitation (MFSR), and Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation Sciences (MRS). Applications focusing on the fundamental circuit or neuronal level of motor function, including the structure and function of circuits for motor, vestibular, and somatosensory systems, are reviewed in SMN. Applications that emphasize motor behavior outcomes, significant components of rehabilitation or motor training, and developmental studies of motor function are reviewed in MFSR. Applications addressing motor function primarily at the level of motor behavior or focus on the rehabilitation of body posture, gait, balance, locomotion, and movement disorders may be assigned to MRS.

There are shared interests with Integrative Approaches in Neurodegeneration (IAN) and Clinical Neurodegeneration Translational Neuroscience (CNTN) regarding neurodegenerative disorders. Preclinical animal studies of general neurodegeneration are reviewed in IAN, whereas clinical or parallel clinical-animal studies are reviewed in CNTN. For motor control and circuitry, applications focusing on the basic circuit mechanisms underlying complex motor behaviors or disorders of motor control in preclinical models may be reviewed in SMN. SMN also reviews basic mechanisms of cortical and cerebellar micro-circuitry involved in voluntary and involuntary movements. Applications that focus on spinal cord injury, or circuit-level pathophysiological mechanisms of Parkinson’s disease, are reviewed by CNTN.

There are shared interests in somatosensation with Neuroscience of Interoception and Chemosensation (NIC), Neurobiology of Pain and Itch (NPI) and NPA (87). Applications addressing mechanisms of integration of chemosensory signals and motor output may be reviewed by SMN. Applications that focus on the peripheral transduction and central sensory encoding of these signals may be reviewed in NIC. Applications addressing somatosensation in the context of pain or itch are reviewed in NPI or NPA (87).

There are shared interests with Learning, Memory and Decision Neuroscience (LMDN) and Biobehavioral Regulation, Learning and Ethology (BRLE). Applications focusing specifically on the mechanisms of motor learning may be reviewed in SMN. Applications focusing on general mechanisms of learning, memory, or decision making, including those using animal models of navigation, are reviewed in LMDN. Applications emphasize predominantly behavioral orientation of learning or navigation may be reviewed in BRLE. 

There are shared interests in visuomotor function with Neuroscience of Basic Visual Processes (NBVP). Applications focus on sensorimotor integration or the specific motor control of eye movements are reviewed in SMN. Applications focus on visual perception and its relationship to higher cognitive functions in humans are reviewed in NBVP.

Computational applications that emphasize formal modeling methods or the development of mathematical approaches may be appropriate for Modeling and Analysis of Biological Systems (MABS), whereas applications that emphasize the application of such models to sensory and motor control may be reviewed in SMN.

Applications addressing the development of chemosensory or somatosensory systems with emphases on cellular differentiation, axonal pathfinding, or synaptic function are typically reviewed by Nervous System Development and Repair (NSDR) or Neuronal Communications (NC). 

Applications focused on basic cellular and subcellular properties of chemical signaling, such as ion channels, glial physiology, or molecular neurogenetics, may be reviewed by NC, NSDR, or Basic and Mechanistic Glial Studies (BMGS).