Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

As humans, we walk on two legs and move from one place to another with relative ease. Walking is considered an automatic movement and is a skill that most of us learn and master as toddlers. But, while it seems quite easy, the movement patterns performed during walking are complex. Walking involves rhythmic and alternating movements of the arms and legs in a series of repetitive forward steps. While one foot is on the ground, the other foot swings through the air as you step forward. Once the foot in the air contacts the ground, the other foot then "alternates" and swings through the air during the next step forward. One foot always remains on the ground, ensuring you do not topple over. What is the brain's role in walking? Though we generally walk without much conscious effort, the brain is intricately involved in initiating and maintaining walking. Despite its' importance, however, we know relatively little about how it operates during walking. Recent work from our lab has begun to unravel the cortical (brain) mechanisms associated with arm cycling, a rhythmic motor output that is used in our lab as a model of walking given their movement similarities. We have shown that networks of cells located within and between both sides of the brain are involved in walking. There is still much to learn, however, and the work proposed in this grant will further explore how the brain controls human walking. Why is this work important? If my car were to break down, I wouldn't know how to fix it because I don't know how it works. We can think of the brain's control of walking in a similar light. If our brain is impacted by disease or injury thus impacting our ability to walk, how can we know how to fix it if we don't know how it works? Determining the brain's role during walking will in turn assist in developing targeted neurorehabilitation procedures in attempt to restore one's ability to walk following disease or injury, such as stroke or spinal cord injury.