Applied Research | Fundamental Research

CAREN Base

Fundamental Research

MOTEK Medical technology is used as a valuable research tool for a variety of fundamental research topics at client’s research centers across the world. Some of these research topics include:

  • Understanding the complex relationships between human beings and environmental space as mediated by the body in movement.
  • Studies concerned with developing computational models and tools that incorporate understanding of the cognitive processes engaged when human beings interact with environmental space.
  • Study of movement as a therapeutic tool to enhance human health.
  • Geomatics, biomechanical engineering, spatial cognition and movement therapy applicable to rehabilitation.
  • Explorations of the bodily basis for interactions with the spatial environment, as well as the perceptions people form of such interactions.
  • Study of joints and the development of surgical methods and prostheses that overcome deficiencies in joints.
  • Study of locomotor adaptations, particularly anticipatory adjustments, for environmental constraints. Specifically looking at locomotor strategies used for obstacle avoidance and surface accommodation (changes in surface level and type) in both healthy and pathological populations.
  • Links between motor imagery ability, cognitive function and the use of mental practice to improve the learning of motor skills.
  • Multi sensory coupling of perception and action in real-world time and space.
  • Studying the effects of mental representations solicited by navigation activities.
  • Studying both the mechanical properties and the psychological attributes of people with regard to their relationship with space over a range of movement competencies.
  • Developing appropriate therapies for patients suffering from movement deficits through understanding of body movement and its mental models for the full range of movement competency.
  • Better understanding of the mental representations that people develop about themselves and their environmental spaces as related to their own movement, across a range of performance competencies, including supernormal performance (dancers), normal performers and performers with movement deficits (rehabilitation after stroke or onset of arthritis).
  • Better understanding of the role of sensory inputs and sensory motor organization in posture and movement, especially in the presence of joint deficiencies, and the effects such constraints have on mental representations of environmental space.
  •  Explorations of the adaptations of mental representation of actions in persons with supernormal performance capabilities (dancers) as well as musculoskeletal (amputation, joint replacement and temporary immobilization) and other somatosensory deficits and their relation with mental practice outcomes.
  • Development of appropriate motor training using virtual environments and the development of new therapies.
  • Study of problems related to movement therapy.
  • Better understanding of the ways the human brain and the human body create functional movements.
  • Better understanding of the central control mechanisms in the brain that are in charge of balance and locomotion activities.

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