Topic: sensorimotor cortex

The sensorimotor cortex plays a fundamental role for animals and humans to navigate and act in complex environments. In conventional experimental approaches animals perform highly trained tasks in a trial-repetitive manner with their movements limited to ensure reproducibility of the same or similar trial conditions. These conditions limit the study of ecologically relevant foraging behavior, particularly those involving full-body movements. However, recording from freely moving animals poses significant challenges for computational analysis due to the uniqueness of each trial and the complex

Voluntary movement in animal is regulated be the sensorimotor cortex. The cortex generates the motor command as well as signals to increase the weight of relevant sensory information (sensory gating) that are both essential for the realization of adapted and coordinated movements. The corticospinal tract (CST) is the most direct pathway conveying these signals. Our previous work on anesthetized mice has shown that the lumbar projecting CST induces mainly the modulation of sensory information rather than the direct control of muscle contraction. The aim of our study is to identify the implicati

Childhood is a period of construction of the organism, during which interactions with the environment and regular physical activity favour the maturation of the neuronal networks. However, some children exhibit a sensorimotor restriction (SMR) because they are bedridden or they suffer from a neurodevelopmental disorder. In order to better understand the emergence of neuromuscular disorders in these children, a model of SMR has been developed in rats, consisting in hindlimb casting from postnatal day (PND) 1 to PND 28. These animals display a prominent motor phenotype that includes muscle weakn