2013 McGovern Institute Symposium

The annual McGovern Institute symposium, which took place on May 8, 2013, featured nine talks on the subject of motor control and the motor cortex. Motor commands represent the output of the brain and its evolutionary raison d’être. To produce useful movements the brain must select appropriate combinations of muscles from a vast range of possibilities, and must activate them with precise control of force and timing.

This symposium explored how the brain accomplishes this task: what computations does it perform to control movement, how and where in the brain does this happen, and how can this knowledge be exploited for rehabilitation and for the development of neural prosthetics.