Grant: Operating Grant

The aim of the proposed research is to better understand how the brain controls tasks involving object manipulation. Understanding object manipulation is important because many daily tasks require manipulation skills and these skills are often severely damaged by stroke and neurological disease and are difficult to recover. A better understanding of the strategies the brain uses to control manipulation tasks will be important both for assessing sensory and motor loss following neurological damage and for devising better therapies for rehabilitation. The proposed research consists of four interrelated projects. The first project will examine how sequences of actions that make up manipulation tasks (e.g., reaching for, lifting, and moving an object) are linked together to produce dexterous behaviour and how such linking changes with learning. The second project will examine the control of corrective actions that are generated when movement errors occur and that are necessary for successful manipulation. The third project will examine how hand-held tools are integrated into movement control. Finally, the fourth project will examine the ability of people to learn about object properties by observing others manipulating objects.