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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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Colly Mitchell
Program Coordinator
Summary Sentence: “The Spinal Cord: Parallel/Distributed Processor Regulating Limb Mechanics” - T. Richard Nichols, PhD - Georgia Tech
Full Summary: The Petit Institute Breakfast Club seminar series was started with the spirit of the Institute's interdisciplinary mission in mind and started to feature local Petit Institute faculty member's research in a seminar format. Faculty are often asked to speak at other universities and conferences, but rarely present at their home institution, this seminar series is an attempt to close that gap. The Petit Institute Breakfast Club is open to anyone in the bio-community.
Breakfast Club Seminar Series“The Spinal Cord: Parallel/Distributed Processor Regulating Limb Mechanics”
T. Richard Nichols, PhD
Professor & Chair
School of Applied Physiology
Georgia Tech
The work in the Neurophysiology Laboratory is focused on mechanisms underlying motor coordination in mammalian systems. These mechanisms are to be found in the structure and dynamic properties of the musculoskeletal system as well as in the organization of neuronal circuits in the central nervous system. Our work concerns the interactions between the musculoskeletal system and spinal cord that give rise to normal and abnormal movement and posture, and in the manner in which central pattern-generating networks are modified for specific motor tasks. Their studies have applications in several movement disorders, including spinal cord injury. The experimental approaches span a number of levels, from mechanical studies of isolated muscle cells to kinematic measurements of natural behavior in quadrupeds.
