title: A spiking neural model of adaptive arm control.
abstract: We present a spiking neuron model of the motor cortices and cerebellum of the motor control system. The model consists of anatomically organized spiking neurons encompassing premotor, primary motor, and cerebellar cortices. The model proposes novel neural computations within these areas to control a nonlinear three-link arm model that can adapt to unknown changes in arm dynamics and kinematic structure. We demonstrate the mathematical stability of both forms of adaptation, suggesting that this is a robust approach for common biological problems of changing body size (e.g. during growth), and unexpected dynamic perturbations (e.g. when moving through different media, such as water or mud). To demonstrate the plausibility of the proposed neural mechanisms, we show that the model accounts for data across 19 studies of the motor control system. These data include a mix of behavioural and neural spiking activity, across subjects performing adaptive and static tasks. Given this proposed characterization of the biological processes involved in motor control of the arm, we provide several experimentally testable predictions that distinguish our model from previous work.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Theoretical Neuroscience, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L3G1 tdewolf@uwaterloo.ca.|Applied Brain Research, Inc., Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L3G1.
authors.forename: Travis
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-8780-5631
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: DeWolf
authors.affiliation: Centre for Theoretical Neuroscience, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L3G1.|Applied Brain Research, Inc., Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L3G1.
authors.forename: Terrence C
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Stewart
authors.affiliation: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Jean-Jacques
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Slotine
authors.affiliation: Centre for Theoretical Neuroscience, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L3G1.|Applied Brain Research, Inc., Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L3G1.
authors.forename: Chris
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Eliasmith
mesh_terms: D001132:Arm / Q000502:physiology*; D002531:Cerebellum / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics
keywords: cerebellum; computational neuroscience; large-scale spiking neuron models; motor control; motor cortices