Locomotion

…include soft and biohybrid robots, locomotion, manipulation, perception, human–robot interaction, learning and safety. Successful candidates receive fully funded doctoral employment at ETH salary rates with social benefits and define their research project with a supervisor. Start by agreement in 2027. Apply through the ETH online recruitment portal. Application deadline: 2026-11-27.

Pursue independent robotics research across soft and biohybrid robots, locomotion, manipulation, perception, human–robot interaction and computational design. The fellowship includes opportunities to develop learning methods on real hardware and mentor students.

…and demonstrates functions such as locomotion, grasping and navigating constrictions. The position is full-time in Zurich with a preferred start in the third or fourth q

How does a cat gracefully walk and suddenly freeze when spotting a mouse? In this talk, we look at how networks in the spinal cord generate movement. In particular, we address the fundamental yet poorly understood question of motor control: How can rhythmic movements, such as walking, be generated and stopped at any point in the cycle while posture is preserved? Since conventional models of spinal motor function rely on alternation between flexor and extensor modules, which are limited to just two phases, this question exposes the essential shortcoming of the conventional understanding: How ca

All animal locomotion is rhythmic,whether it is achieved through undulatory movement of the whole body or the coordination of articulated limbs. Neurobiologists have long studied locomotor circuits that produce rhythmic activity with non-rhythmic input, also called central pattern generators (CPGs). However, the cellular and microcircuit implementation of a walking CPG has not been described for any limbed animal. New comprehensive connectomes of the fruit fly ventral nerve cord (VNC) provide an opportunity to study rhythmogenic walking circuits at a synaptic scale.We use a data-driven network

Most walking animals can maintain motor control after limb injury or amputation, where coordinating movements of a drastically altered body requires dynamic interactions between the nervous system, the biomechanics of the body, and the physical environment. Until recently, it has been challenging to link neural and biomechanical models to investigate adaptive motor recovery because it requires coupling neural control in closed-loop with the environment. Further, while previous approaches have been able to simulate walking in biomechanically realistic bodies, the joint kinematics and ground rea

…animal is moving, whereas in primates locomotion has a weak impact on responses in the primary visual cortex (V1). These differences raise questions about the existence and universality of computational principles underlying sensory coding during behavior. We take a normativ

Social interactions across animal species are governed by the interplay between multimodal sensory information and the internal states of each animal. Here, we investigate this interplay in female Drosophila (fruit fly) as she engages with the male during courtship, a highly dynamic social behavior. Previous work has shown that the male fly's courtship song is shaped by the subtle feedback cues from the female and is influenced by his internal states1,2. However, in the case of females, prior work has focused only on predicting her walking speed averaged over minutes3,4; her fast timescale res

Spontaneous, naturalistic behaviors comprise most of an animal’s lifetime. However, understanding how the brain encodes complex naturalistic behavior remains a fundamental challenge in neuroscience. Decades of research has shown that performance on overtrained, task-based, goal-oriented behaviors can be decoded from neural activity recorded in areas of the corticostriatal axis, namely primary motor cortex (M1) and dorsal striatum (DS). More recently, single-unit responses during the execution of trained behaviors were found to be stable over a timescale of weeks in M1. However, it is currently

Serotonin (5-HT) is implicated in decision-making, such as signaling prediction errors and cue values, as well as to the regulation of behavioral states of wakefulness and arousal, but the relationship between these two domains of function is not well understood. On one hand, serotonin activity is negatively associated with locomotor behavior, which has been seen as behavioral inhibition. On the other hand, serotonin transients are also associated with surprise or uncertainty, as well as novelty responses, including exploration-related facial movements (e.g., whisking, sniffing). Because ther

Axial proprioceptive sensory feedback plays a crucial role in modulating locomotion, enabling vertebrates to dynamically adjust motor output in response to body movements and environmental forces. In this study, we present a spiking neuromechanical model of the zebrafish, focusing on how proprioceptive signals from Piezo2-expressing neurons modulate the activity of the spinal cord's central pattern generator (CPG) network, thus regulating the locomotor output. A spiking neural network comprising the main classes of interneurons in the zebrafish locomotor circuits, namely V2a, V0d and motoneur

…of quantitative frameworks for mouse locomotion (LocoMouse; Machado et al., eLife 2015, 2020) and locomotor learning, in which mice adapt their locomotor symmetry in response to environmental perturbations (Darmohray et al., Neuron 2019). Combined with genetic circuit dissection, these stu

Cells and microorganisms are motile, yet the stationary nature of conventional microscopes impedes comprehensive, long-term behavioral and biomechanical analysis. The limitations are twofold: a narrow focus permits high-resolution imaging but sacrifices the broader context of organism behavior, while a wider focus compromises microscopic detail. This trade-off is especially problematic when investigating rapidly motile ciliates, which often have to be confined to small volumes between coverslips affecting their natural behavior. To address this challenge, we introduce Trackoscope, an 2-axis au

One-shot learning is a crucial mechanism for survival and adaptation, enabling rapid acquisition of knowledge from a single experience [1]. Here, we investigated the synaptic plasticity associated with one-shot learning in vivo, focusing on endocannabinoid-mediated long-term potentiation (eCB-LTP) at cortico-striatal synapses [2]. We recorded neural activity in the cortex and striatum of behaving mice subjected to an uncomfortable stimulus in an arena using Neuropixel probes. This task was designed to induce avoidance behavior after a single encounter of the stimulus, thus modeling one-shot le

…For example, in rodents and insects locomotion increases the magnitude of visual responses [1-3], while in primates, locomotion has a weak suppressive influence [4]. These differences raise intriguing questions about the computational purpose of such modulations and the generality of the underlying principles of sensory processing. Here, we address these questions from a theoretical perspective. Our approach is groun

…as a model organism for the study of locomotion and locomotion generation and dysregulation. Behavioral tracking of zebrafish has usually restricted itself to tracking in the (x,y) plane with an overhead camera. This precludes studies that investigate postural control or navigation in naturalistic, three-dimensional conditions. To study full body coordination we built a rig that allows us to track larval zebrafish in 3D with high resolution

…(CPGs) and to simulate biological locomotion such as human bipedal walking (Taga et al., 1991; Ogihara & Yamazaki, 2001). However, most previous studies have overlooked its convergent dynamics toward stationary states, corresponding to transient neuronal activities and non-oscillator

In vertebrates, the whole body postural control is mainly achieved by motor reflexes of vestibular source. The responsible excitatory vestibulospinal (VS) pathways have been described in a large variety of species and show striking anatomical and functional resemblances despite strong biomechanical dissimilarities. Here, we investigate in two phylogenetically distant species whether the inhibitory networks surrounding these VS pathways may orchestrate vestibular-originating reflexes to possibly match them to specific biomechanics. Combining various anatomical techniques, we demonstrate the exi

Locomotion is implemented with a modular structure in the spinal cord. Upstream, the reticulospinal neurons (RSNs) receive various sensory inputs, descending control signals and ascending feedback from spinal circuits to command movement. Due to the limited surgical access and intermingling of excitatory and inhibitory cells in the region, it is unclear whether the brainstem RSNs shares a modular organisation similar to the spinal circuits. We address this question using larval zebrafish and focus on the central excitatory strip in the hindbrain labelled by transcription factor vsx2+ (V2a). Us

…visual processing, we investigated how locomotion affects various visual tuning properties in distinct functional cell types of the mouse retina and SC. We employed two-photon imaging of calcium activity in retinal axon terminals and neurons of the superficial SC (sSC) while mice were head-fixed and able to run at will on a treadmill. Neural activity was recorded in

Locomotion is an essential and conserved movement that allows humans and animals to interact with their surroundings. Although locomotion appears seemingly effortless, it is an intricate motor behavior that requires the orchestration of several supraspinal and spinal neuronal substrates activating many axial and limb muscles. Thus enabling organisms to navigate through and adapt to their environment. Such context-dependent and episodic locomotor behaviors require an interruption or arrest to adjust the movement toward the aimed goal. However, the neural pathways of motor arrest behaviors upon

…in auditory fields linked to locomotion. Our exploration o

2- 3% of population are affected by neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), causing severe intellectual impairment, health complications and reduced life expectancy. In approximately half of the affected individuals the causal genetic variants remain unknown. Utilizing a comprehensive genetic screening strategy in a cohort of consanguineous families with multiple affected children, several gene variants associated with NDDs were identified. Among these, KCNH5 emerged as a compelling candidate due to its high expression in the nervous system and high degree of conservation in Drosophila melanogast

…However, we recently learned that locomotion and arousal strongly modulate visual processing, even at the retina level. Here, we aim to understand how locomotion impacts visual adaptation in the superior colliculus (SC), the most prominent visual centre in mice, which integrates retinal input in its superficial layers and performs sensorimotor transformations in its deeper layers. We r