If you are at #SfN25 and interested in proprioception or motor skill learning, stop by our posters! Sunday morning (L14) and Tuesday morning (T5).

🧠Want to start a #PhD in sensorimotor #neuroscience in Fall 2026? Our NIH- and NSF-funded lab at
@iubloomington.bsky.social uses human behavior and noninvasive brain stimulation to study motor learning and perception. More info: blocklab.net/openings.html or hjblock@iu.edu. Deadline is Dec. 15.

Network dynamics for sensory prioritization: Functional connectivity related to individual sensory weighting of vision versus proprioception during upper limb control Precise control of the hand requires the dynamic integration of visual and proprioceptive (body position sense) sensory cues with internal models, task goals, and motor plans. Individual differences i...

Preprint alert!

Individual preferences in relying on vision or proprioception in reaching show distinct patterns in connectivity across sensorimotor network.

Happy to have contributed to this nice piece of work by Kess, @hjblock.bsky.social and other cool people!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🚨It's published! 🚨Our results support highly-simplified-model "B", if you're wondering. The Somatosensory Cortex and Body Representation: Updating the Motor System during a Visuoproprioceptive Cue Conflict www.jneurosci.org/content/45/3...

What happens to motor adaptation—the way we correct errors with feedback—when feedback is indirect, like a number on a screen?

In our new paper in @royalsociety.org‬, we found that indirect feedback hinders learning compared to sensory feedback.

tinyurl.com/5d32c99e

Found it! Not significantly different from younger adults, but very small samples. And different method from yours. brill.com/view/journal...

Cool! I'll add this to my reading list. I'm curious how the weighted combination is calculated. I recall also noticing higher weight of vision in older people in a study a few years ago, although might not have been significantly different from young ppl.

(5/5)... recalibration expected. As you can see, the control group pointed at the V cue throughout its gradual displacement (A). The lack of undershoot indicates subject laziness is not the cause of V cue undershoot when the real cue conflict is present. (positive values in B = V cue undershoot)

(4/5)...(a confound) rather than because they perceive the visual cue closer than it is (visual recalibration). So a control group performed the task with only unimodal visual cues during the "cue conflict". The V cue moved away at the usual rate, but there were no bimodal trials so no visual...

(3/5) Bonus expt: Is visual recalibration real? I get asked this because we do the cue conflict by gradually shifting the visual cue away from the proprioceptive cue. When subjects undershoot visual cues on unimodal trials (blue arrow), it could be because they're too lazy to point further away ...

(2/5) These updates are specific to the change in proprioceptive representation and are absent when cues are not in conflict. This may represent a unisensory pathway to the motor system that conveys information about hand representation, acting in parallel with multisensory pathways.

(1/5)📢Now with bonus experiment!📢Somatosensory cortex and body representation.
When hand representation is modified by introducing a conflict between visual and proprioceptive cues, the motor system receives updates directly from primary somatosensory cortex (SI). www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

📢New preprint! The brain may handle visuo-proprioceptive cue conflicts differently for a dynamic hand undergoing visuomotor adaptation than for a static hand. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Our lab is hiring a post-doc at Emory University, working on sensorimotor neuroimaging after stroke and/or multisensory integration, touch and embodiment. Start date: approximately late summer 2024. Please email me with any questions you have about the position.