Seminar Details
2010-04-20 (14.00) : The brain accounts for 3D eye and head kinematics in the visuomotor transformation of velocity signals in manual tracking
At Euler building
Organized by Mathematical Engineering
Speaker :
Leclercq, Guillaume
Abstract :
Visually guided arm movements are common actions carried out each day in our everyday life. When performing visually guided arm movements,
the brain needs to transform the visual information (the tennis ball, an obstacle) into an appropriate motor plan for the arm (i.e. a command to give
to the arm's muscles). Here, we investigated if the brain accounts for the 3D eye position, 3D head position and 3D eye velocity in the visuomotor
transformation of velocity signals for manual tracking movements. A visuomotor transformation model taking into account the complete 3D eye-head-shoulder
kinematics was built using dual quaternions. To test model predictions, human subjects performed manual tracking movements in different eye-head-shoulder
configurations, either static or dynamic. We compared the arm initial open-loop direction with the predictions provided by the model. Results show that the brain
uses internal 3D eye and head position as well as eye velocity signals to account for the eye-head-shoulder kinematics in the visuomotor transformation of velocity
signals for manual tracking movements.