19w5235 — Optimal Neuroethology of Movement and Motor Control

‘The only way humans and animals can affect the world is via movement... the only reason for the existence of the brain may be to ultimately affect movement’ (Wolpert, 2011). Thus, understanding how goal-directed movement behavior is planned and controlled may give us a unique window into neuroscience. Thousands of experiments have shed light on movement behavior and a comparable number of mathematical models have been built to interpret these experiments. But the ultimate scientific objective is to distill this long catalog of insights into a few key principles of sensorimotor control and stitch together a broadly applicable mathematical theory from the myriad domain-specific models.