Our research aims to understand how spinal circuits dynamically regulate motor output and how this can be restored following spinal cord injury.
| Department of Kinesiology – College of Health and Human Development – The Pennsylvania State University Affiliations: Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, Center for Movement Science and Technology, Center for Molecular Investigation of Neurological Disorders, Penn State Neuroscience Institute |
| The Penn State Movement Gain Control Lab is led by Dr. Simon Sharples. Our work focuses on how spinal circuits control the gain, flexibility, and precision of movement, with a particular emphasis on neuromodulatory control of spinal motoneurons. We are interested in how spinal circuits dynamically regulate motor output to meet changing behavioral demands, how these mechanisms emerge as motor behaviors develop, and how they become disrupted following spinal cord injury and neurological disease. Using multidisciplinary approaches in rodent models – including electrophysiology, molecular and transcriptomic approaches, and functional measures of movement and breathing – my lab seeks to define the circuit mechanisms that enable adaptive motor control across development and disease. A central goal is to understand how alterations in spinal circuit function contribute to motor dysfunction after spinal cord injury and to identify mechanisms that can be targeted to restore movement and breathing. |
