Healthy humans walk, reach, and make eye movements all the time without any effort. These movement behaviours are very sophisticated, despite the limitations of our sensory and motor systems. Moreover, we maintain the way we move despite the many changes in the physical properties of our body. To understand how we do so, we address questions like: How do we learn to walk? How do we combine information from the senses to control our movements? How do we choose from the abundant possibilities where to move and how to make this movement?
We study these questions using several neuroscientific approaches. At the level of information processing, we investigate what information is used to achieve the goals of a movement. What are the limiting factors in information processing? Another approach is to understand how this information processing is implemented: how is the information exchanged between muscles and brain and between various parts of the brain.
To answer our research questions, we use experiments involving healthy individuals and patient groups, mathematical models, and computer simulations. For our experiments, we frequently use high-precision equipment in the lab such as specialized treadmills, motion capture systems, electromyography, electroencephalography, TMS, and eye trackers. To facilitate practical application and study special populations we develop research tools that we can use outside the laboratory.