Dr Phil Newland BBSRC Multimodal Computation in Neural Networks

We can make remarkably precise movements of our limbs but how the movements are produced and controlled by our brains is less clearly understood. Insects can also make precise movements of their limbs even though the numbers of nerve cells in their brains are many times smaller. This project aims to improve our understanding of how the nervous system of an insect, the desert locust, is able to generate and control these limb movements by asking what the roles of the different types of nerve cell, or interneurones, are when movements of a leg are made, and how intersegmental coordination and additional multimodal inputs change the responses of the interneurones. This will be done by using mathematical models to quantify an interneurones response to an imposed limb movement. These models will be constructed for many different cells and their contributions to the final limb movement determined. It is also thought that different parts of a nerve cell can simultaneously perform different functions, although this has not been studied in any detail. Using a combination of physiological recording combined with imaging techniques the aim of the project is to establish what this form of distributed processing contributes to the control of movements. Engineers have spent many years developing new ways of controlling robot movements and we believe that it may be possible that the way insects control and produce their limb movements could, in the future, form the basis of an improved design for controlling robotic appendages, biomechanics and movement analysis.