"Neural Basis for Skilled Movements”  

Adam Hantman, Ph.D. 
Associate Professor
Department of Cell Biology and Physiology
University of North Carolina

Abstract
Skillful movements contribute to the major functions of the brain, such as perception and manipulation of the world. Skill involves understanding the world, developing appropriate plans, converting those plans into appropriate motor commands, and adaptively reacting to feedback. Considering the range of possible actions and the complexity of musculoskeletal arrangements, skilled motor control is an amazing achievement of the nervous system. The myriad of these underlying operations is likely performed by a diverse set of neural circuits. By combining anatomy, physiology, and specific (genetic and temporal) manipulations, we hope to identify and understand the neural elements responsible for skillful motor control. Currently, we focus on the role of the cortico-cerebellar loop in a learned reach-grab-eat task in the rodent.
 
Bio 
Adam Hantman is the Edward R. Perl Investigator, Yang Scholar, and  Associate Professor in the Department of Cell Biology & Physiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  He received his training in Physiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and in Neuroscience and Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Columbia University where he was the Robert Leet and Clara Guthrie Patterson Trust Fellow.  

The Hantman Lab is interested in how functions emerge from network activity in the nervous system. Particularly, how the nervous system generates patterns of activity that control our bodies in the world. Their approach combines genetics, anatomy, physiology, perturbations, and a dynamical systems approach.