SNAPPING - A PARADIGM FOR MODELING COORDINATION OF MOTOR SYNERGIES

We study motor coordination in anuran prey-capture behavior to address how the dynamical interaction among elements of the sensorimotor syst em provides a high degree of flexibility in motor behavior. The transf ormation of sensory signals into appropriate spatiotemporal patterns o f activity, in the motoneurons is postulated to be carried out in part by a motor pattern generator (MPG). The following describes a biologi cally constrained neural network model for such an MPG to explore ways in which a physiologically identified push-pull mechanism built in th e MPG can be used to generate and synchronize motor synergies, offer a hypothesis on on-line correction of movements based on visual feedbac k, and investigate the role of afferent feedback in two-way informatio n flow between sensory centers, motor circuits, and periphery.