Referent Control of Action and Perception ― Challenging Conventional Theories in Behavioral Neuroscience

Empirical data on neural control of motor action and perception have not yet been put into the context of a coherent theory. Dr. Feldman's goal for the proposed book is to illustrate that the field is now at a stage where the data can be used to formulate some core principles that underlie action and perception and to present the foundation of a scientific theory of motor control. Dr. Feldman is a well-known expert and has been active in the field for a long time. In the proposed book he will outline an approach to the analysis of action and perception that he and his colleagues have been using for the past 50 years or so. His theoretical approach will not only help to explain past empirical research, but should also help to inform and provide a structure for future empirical studies.

Dr. Anatol Feldman is one of the world’s foremost neuroscientists in the area of motor control. His work has had a strong and sustained influence in behavioral neuroscience since the 1960’s when he published a unique theory of motor control, called the equilibrium-point hypothesis He has been a professor in the Department of Physiology (now Neuroscience) at the University of Montreal since 1990. After having been denied the right to travel out of the USSR for 25 years, he was granted permission to attend a neuroscience meeting as a distinguished Keynote Speaker in Ontario in 1988. He returned to Canada as a visiting professor at McGill University in 1989. In 1997, he joined the Centre de recherche en sciences neurologiques (CRSN) in the Department of Neuroscience at the Universite de Montreal. His laboratories are affiliated with the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Rehabilitation of Greater Montreal (CRIR). He is the first recipient of the Nicolai Bernstein award from the International Society of Motor Control.