JHU BME

Laboratory for Computational
Motor Control

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Reza Shadmehr Professor of Biomedical Engineering Professor of Neuroscience Johns Hopkins University 720 Rutland Ave, 410 Traylor Building Baltimore, MD 21205-2195 Scientific genealogy Google Scholar Profile Directions to the lab

Our work focuses on understanding how the human brain perceives the world, how it learns, and how it controls our movements.  We study actions of healthy people, as well as people with neurological disorders. We look for regularities and use mathematics to ask about the origins of these regularities. Our approach is non-invasive, aiming to never harm. Our tools include robotics, brain stimulation, and neuroimaging. We have two long-term aims: 

• To understand the basic function of the motor structures of the brain including the cerebellum, the motor cortex, and the parietal cortex.
• To understand why we move the way we do in terms of economics, decision theory, and evolution.

Resources: 
Introductory lecture on the mathematical problem of motor control
New book: Biological Learning and Control
Text book: Computational Neurobiology of Reaching and Pointing
Annual meeting: Advances in Computational Motor Control
BME PhD: For prospective graduate students
fMRI Compatible Robots

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Email
Office location	Traylor Building, Room 410
Laboratory location	Traylor Building, Room 416
Phone (office)	410 614-2458
Phones (lab)	410 614-3424 410 614-8266
FAX	410 502-2826

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Administrative Assistant	Chris Blackledge
Phone	410 502-5928
	cblackledge  AT jhu.edu

During a typical experiment, we measure motor control as people learn to interact with novel tools.	We measure eye movements and quantify how the brain integrates visual information with proprioceptive information.	We use transcranial magnetic stimulation to briefly disrupt neural processing of information in the brain to assess how it impacts control of movements.
We use functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure correlates of neural activity in the brain during tool use.	We use positron emission tomography to measure blood flow in the brain, a correlates of neural activity, during adaptive control of reaching.	In collaboration with Dr. Fred Lenz in Hopkins Neurosurgery, we record from single cells in the brain during adaptive control of reaching.
A two-arm robotic system to help investigate coordination and control in healthy people and in patients with neurological disorders.	In collaboration with Dr. David Zee in Hopkins Neurology, we measure eye trajectory during saccades in order to better understand control of eye movements in healthy people and in patients with neurological disorders.	It is mostly about having fun (a street performer in Buenos Ares, Oct. 2009).