Synopses & Reviews
Purpose of this book is to combine different approaches in the study of arm movement in space in order to create new synergy between domains of researchwhich tend to be developed independently. It is from these synergies that a new understanding of the control of arm and hand movement can ermerge.Previous books have been devoted to artificial neural networks for sensorimotor control (for example Advanced Neural Computers, R. Eckmiller ed. Elsevier). The present book is the first one to propose a precise and direct comparison between current computational development and new experimental results of neurophysiology and new experimental results of neurophysiology and neurophysics. The book covers different levels of neuralcontrol: spinal cord, red nucleus, premotor cortex, motor cortex,parietal cortex, thalamus and cerebellum. An important place is devoted to the problems of muscle coordination, internal representations of movement variables, in different nervous regions and to the problem of coordinate transformations underlying reaching and manipulation. For the physiologist, the book proposes not only a comprehensive picture of new experimental results but also a theoretical basis for a better understandingof central coding of movement by neuroinal populations. For neural networks and robotics students, this book provides a very rich knowledge on the way the brain controls arm movements by using visual information, it can offer them new concepts and ideas to generate more efficient artificial systems having in mind the powerful capacity of the human brain.