Background All behaviour requires energy, and measuring energy expenditure in standard units (joules) is key to linking behaviour to ecological processes. Animal-borne accelerometers are commonly used to infer proxies of energy expenditure, termed 'dynamic ...
The premotor (PM) and primary motor (M1) cortical areas broadcast voluntary motor commands through multiple neuronal pathways, including the corticorubral projection that reaches the red nucleus (RN). However, the respective contribution of M1 and PM to co ...
In this thesis, we address the complex issue of collision avoidance in the joint space of robots. Avoiding collisions with both the robot's own body parts and obstacles in the environment is a critical constraint in motion planning and is crucial for ensur ...
Over the past two decades, epidural electrical stimulation (EES) has transitioned from a treatment for chronic pain to a promising paradigm for ameliorating deficits associated with neurological disorders like spinal cord injury (SCI) and Parkinson's Disea ...
VR (Virtual Reality) is a real-time simulation that creates the subjective illusion of being in a virtual world.
This thesis explores how integrating the user's body and fingers can be achieved and beneficial for the user to experience VR.
At the advent of ...
Exoskeletons intended for partial assistance of walking should be able to follow the gait pattern of their users, via online adaptive control strategies rather than imposing predefined kinetic or kinematic profiles. NeuroMuscular Controllers (NMCs) are ada ...
Spinal cord injury (SCI) interrupts axonal connections between the brain and the spinal cord, and is characterized by a spectrum of sensorimotor and autonomic impairments. While spontaneous recovery is limited, recent studies have shown that functional imp ...
Soft robot are celebrated for their propensity to enable compliant and complex robot-environment interactions. Soft robotic manipulators, or slender continuum structure robots have the potential to exploit these interactions to enable new exploration and m ...
The spinal cord is an elongated nervous structure that together with the brain forms the central nervous system. It relays sensory and motor information between the brain and the body, thus controlling most somatic and autonomic body functions. In recent y ...
Planning and execution of voluntary movement depend on the contribution of distinct classes of neurons in primary motor and premotor areas. However, timing and pattern of activation of GABAergic cells during specific motor behaviors remain only partly unde ...
