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My lab:
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Roy Ritzman works on cockroaches and builds robots from the data he gathers in the insects. Cool stuff!
He started by presenting videos of cockroaches with various lesions to their brains, which lead to very specific impairments in turning or incline walking. The control of walking is organized with a central command center in the brain and local circuits mediating the different component of walking behavior. Starting with the local circuits, Roy showed us several motorneuron recordings during walking and from reflex arches in isolated leg preparations. Minor lesions in the brain can change the reflex properties. He then went on to show us some anatomy of the central complex in the brain, thought to be the control center for walking. Lesioning the central complex leads to animals running into walls instead of turning to avoid them. Tetrode recordings from the central complex (CC) show various aspects of antennal input as well as visual arriving all over the entire CC. It appears, not surprisingly, that the deeper you go into the brain, the more multisensory it gets Of course, there are also plenty of units in the CC firing in sync with walking.
Roy finished his talk with a brief overview of how his biological data has been used to construct six-legged robots.

Posted on Tuesday 24 July 2007 - 20:57:07 comment: 0
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