title: Beyond control: the dynamics of brain-body-environment interaction in motor systems.
abstract: Discussions of motor behavior have traditionally focused on how a nervous system controls a body. However, it has become increasingly clear that a broader perspective, in which motor behavior is seen as arising from the interaction between neural and biomechanical dynamics, is needed. This chapter reviews a line of work aimed at exploring this perspective in a simple model of walking. Specifically, I describe the evolution of neural pattern generators for a hexapod body, present a neuromechanical analysis of the dynamics of the evolved agents, characterize how the neural and biomechanical constraints structure the fitness space for this task, and examine the impact of network architecture.
authors.affiliation: Cognitive Science Program, Department of Computer Science, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47406, USA. rdbeer@indiana.edu
authors.forename: Randall D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Beer
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D004777:Environment; D006801:Humans; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology*; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology; D016138:Walking / Q000502:physiology