The UCI Neuromechanics lab has been awarded a grant from the NSF in collaboration with the Nishikawa lab at NAU. The grant project aims to bridge the gap in understanding between ‘top down’ approaches — that focus on whole-animal behavior but lack insight into underlying mechanisms, and ‘bottom-up’ approaches — that characterize mechanisms but lack insight into their contributions to animal behavior. We will combine experimental tools from biomechanics and ex vivo and in vivo muscle physiology to develop an integrative understanding of muscle function across organizational scales from tissue to whole-animal locomotor function. The project will focus on developing a fundamental understanding of muscle function under dynamic and perturbed locomotor conditions.
