A computational modeling approach to study the neuromechanics of terrestrial locomotion

The main theme of my thesis will be to use neuro-muscular modeling techniques to study locomotion of terrestrial mammals. Locomotion is the ability of animals to interact with the environment to propel themselves in space. It involves co-ordination and precise timing of tens of muscles and multiple joints to produce rhythmic, efficient and robust gaits. It is now understood that it is a complex interaction of brain, spinal cord, the musculo-skeletal system and the environment. During my thesis I plan to develop models of rodents to non-human primates to humans to study the interactions between these components. I will be carrying out my research at BioRob lab and funded by the Human Brain Project. After spending an year on this subject currently I have developed a neuro-muscular hind limb model of a mouse. I am using this model to study different locomotion theories ranging from reflex based abstraction methods to Central Patter Generator networks and spiking neuron based spinal circuits. The closed loop approach seems promising and I am now able to generate stable locomotion on a forward dynamics model using all the mentioned frameworks. The future plan will be to further improve the rodent model with more degrees of freedom in the forelimb and extend the same modeling approach to develop non-human primate and human models to carry out similar experiments.