DrChris Richards

There are two broad strands of my group's research.  

Strand 1. The musculoskeletal basis for limb versatility (frog locomotion).

Background:  All frogs “look like frogs”, yet they exhibit rich locomotor diversity both between and within species. We have extensively mapped how musculoskeletal features relate to locomotion and habitat, but do not fully understand how such features confer multifunctionality because of the profound gap between understanding tissue properties and explaining whole-organism behaviour. To help bridge this gap, my group uses bio-engineering tools to investigate 1) mechanical interactions between muscle and surrounding anatomy 2) limb-environment interactions 3) kinematic control of 3D limb movement trajectory.  

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Strand 2. The influence of muscular & neural properties on motor performance in health vs ageing (human reaching).

Successful goal-directed reaching relies on visuomotor, sensorimotor and muscle-dynamical processes that appear to be “mechanically tuned” for effective movement. Elderly adults suffer increased falling risks from deficits in all three processes, yet their relative effects are challenging to untangle. We develop and use neuromechanical simulations of a human arm to help decouple the effects of neural versus muscular ageing on reach performance.