Dr Demetris Soteropoulos

Lecturer in Motor Systems Neuroscience

Telephone: +44 (0)191 208 6914
E-mail:

Behavioural Tasks

Our primary interest is to understand how the brain controls movement. In order to do this, it is useful to carry out experiments during the behaviour of interest, and our lab uses various manipulanda, both for the human and animal experiments. These are manufactured onsite by our mechanical engineer who has been working with the Motor Group for over 10 years. Tasks are instrumented to measure position force and several other parameters related to performance.

Custom made task for measuring index finger position, with motor attached underneath to provide torque perturbations

Our lab is very interested in manipulative movements with either or both hands together and so many of the tasks we use for testing for both humans and animal models include bimanual tasks using either fingers for grasping or tasks using wrist and elbow movements,as well as reaching tasks.

Schematic of bimanual task using both proximal and distal movements
Schematic of bimanual reach and pull task used previously in the lab for some of our animal recordings.

By studying the nervous system during such actions, the results of our experiments can be placed in a much more functional context, and can provide much more meaningful information regarding the mechanisms of motor control.


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