Alexandra Reichenbach
Alumni of the Department Human Perception, Cognition and Action
Main Focus
How is our brain processing sensory information for the control of voluntary movements?
Human arm movements can be incredible fast and accurate, despite their versatility and the complex neural processing underlying these actions. How does the brain achieve this flexible motor control?
This question has been driving me from the beginning of my PhD thesis, and will continue to be central in my future research. Arm movements are an ideal model system for investigating skilled human actions. Thus, understanding their neural mechanisms informs universal motor control theories, and is fundamental for developing scientifically well-grounded learning and training regimes in applied areas such as clinical rehabilitation, sports, and biologically driven robotics. I adopt a systems approach to human motor control research, which links complex real-world behavior to its corresponding neural implementation. The central link is established via computational models, whose internal states relate to the neural processes and whose output corresponds to the behavior.
I am especially interested in the integration of visual and vestibular information for motor control. Regarding vision, I am primarily interested in the question: How does the brain bind actions to their visual consequences? This relationship is established by a dedicated visuo-motor binding mechanism, which I have started to investigate recently. My research on this topic offers a new perspective on fundamental aspects of visuo-motor control theories, and has the potential to better understand clinical conditions with disturbances in visuo-motor processing.