Human Movement Variability Conf - Registration Open

[Jenna Yentes]

Conference.png

The Human Movement Variability Conference will be held on May 20-21, 2021, 100% online. The goal of the conference is to bring together researchers and clinicians to learn and share the latest in human movement variability research. The Human Movement Variability Conference will coincide with the Great Plains Biomechanics Conference in 2021. A tentative schedule has been posted.

Conference highlights:

• Human Movement Variability Keynote Speaker: Dr. James Finley, University of Southern California
• Poster sessions live through SpatialChat
• Promising Graduate Student Award podium session
• Student social and professional development sessions

Registration is free for students*, $10 for postdocs, and $30 for faculty and staff.
*Registration is free for students thanks to a regional conference grant from the American Society of Biomechanics.

REGISTER HERE

[Jenna Yentes]

We are happy to announce that Dr. James Finley's keynote will be entitled, "Embracing variability to identify reactive control strategies for whole-body dynamic balance during healthy and post-stroke gait". We hope you all can join us and enjoy the scientific programming. As a reminder, students register for free due to a grant from the American Society of Biomechanics.

Talk abstract:
Many researchers in the field of neuromotor control seek to understand general principles that describe how we select features of the gait patterns we use to move through our environments. Prevailing theories based on the premise that we tend to minimize effort have successfully explained many features of our steady-state gait. However, these theories provide an incomplete description of the principles that explain cycle-to-cycle variance in locomotor behavior. While variance may result, in part, from undesirable physiological processes (i.e., noise), it is clear that certain deviations from nominal behavior reflect systematic control processes. Here, I will share recent work from my group that examines how internally generated and externally imposed perturbations impact whole-body dynamics and subsequent recovery strategies. This work relies on step-to-step variance in foot placement as a window into the strategy used to control the body's translational and rotational dynamics during walking. I will highlight how step-to-step adjustments in foot placement and foot-ground kinetic interactions help people recover from perturbations. Finally, I will describe how prescribed changes in gait symmetry impact reactive balance control strategies in non-disabled individuals and people post-stroke. Together, this work highlights the link between the study of variability in human locomotion and the neuromechanical processes underlying dynamic balance control in health and disease.