Seminars are open to all visitors and start Monday at 16:00 sharp. Coffee and tea will be served from 15:45. The seminar series lectures are in a colloquiumzaal at the third floor (entrance level) of the Faculty building of Erasmus MC.
Amy Bastian
Cerebellar versus Cerebral Contributions to Locomotor Adaptation
| 2008-10-06 | Room: Ae 406 |
Human locomotion is incredibly flexible, yet requires little conscious effort. We normally don*t think about the exact motions of our legs, but instead focus on other important things: the car approaching the crosswalk or the ball that we are running to catch. This automatic control of walking is critical to our daily lives, and must be constantly adapted to changing environmental demands. Here I will discuss mechanisms of locomotor adaptation using a novel split-belt treadmill paradigm. Using this device, we can *teach* a subject a new walking pattern by controlling the speed of each leg independently. I will describe new experimental data about mechanisms of locomotor adaptation and it*s potential for treatment. Questions that will be addressed include: How generalizable are adaptation effects for walking? What type of error feedback is most useful for driving locomotor adaptation? Are cerebral versus cerebellar regions most critical? Finally, I will address the rehabilitation implications from this work for individuals with cerebral damage.