Author: Noah Cowan

LIMBS Lab receives NSF grant

CowanFortuneLIMBS Lab director Noah Cowan and his colleague, neuroscientist Eric Fortune, were awarded a $805,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, entitled “Neural Mechanisms of Active Sensing”. 

Animals, including humans, routinely use movement to sense the world around them. For example, to sense the texture of an object, a person might move her hand over the surface, whereas to measure the object’s weight, she might hold it in her palm and move it up and down. This use of different movements to sense features of the environment is called Active Sensing. Although active sensing is commonplace in human behavior, how the brain generates and controls these movements is poorly understood. The goal of this project is to reveal and describe (in mathematical equations) the brain’s strategies for active sensing. This will be achieved by studying a specialized animal species, the weakly electric glass knifefish. This animal was chosen because it has a suite of properties that make it ideally suited for the experimental approach. The expected findings will have broad implications for active sensing in other animals (including humans) because active sensing behaviors are similar across species. This work will have broad societal impacts, including the possible transformation of robotic control systems and enhanced understanding of the brain that may ultimately improve our understanding of neurological disorders. Further this work includes multidisciplinary training of promising students in critical STEM fields.

Noah Cowan and James Knierim receive two grants

CowanKnierimHow do you keep track of where you are as you walk through a known environment, such as your house or a shopping mall?  To study this question, Mechanical Engineering professor Noah Cowan and Neuroscience professor James Knierim were selected to receive two awards that aim to use engineering approaches to shed new light on the brain’s “inner GPS”.

  • 2015 Johns Hopkins Discovery Award, entitled “Engineering Approaches to Studying Spatial Representations in the Brain”. PI: Noah J. Cowan. $100,000.
  • A National Institutes of Health R21, entitled “A Control Theoretic Approach to Addressing Hippocampal Function“, PI: Noah J. Cowan. $202,500.

Electric Fish Charges up Research on Animal Behavior

News articles

Related articles

S. Sefati, I. D. Neveln, E. Roth, T. R. T. Mitchell, J. B. Snyder, M. A. MacIver, E. S. Fortune and N. J. Cowan. “Mutually opposing forces during locomotion can eliminate the tradeoff between maneuverability and stability”. PNAS, 110(47):18798-18803, 2013. [pdf] [Supp. pdf]

M. S. Madhav, S. A. Stamper, E. S. Fortune, and N. J. Cowan. “Closed-loop stabilization of the jamming avoidance response reveals its locally unstable and globally nonlinear dynamics”. J Exp Biol, 216:4272-4284, 2013. [pdf]

S. A. Stamper*, M. S. Madhav*, N. J. Cowan, and E. S. Fortune. “Beyond the Jamming Avoidance Response: Weakly electric fish respond to the envelope of social electrosensory signals”. J Exp Biol, 215:4196-4207, 2012 . [pdf] *Contributed equally. Ranked as one of the top 3 publications in 2012 in J Exp Biol. Highlighted in Inside JEB: “Gregarious Electric Fish Adjust to Maintain Social Envelope”

S. A. Stamper*, M. S. Madhav*, N. J. Cowan, and E. S. Fortune. “Beyond the Jamming Avoidance Response: Weakly electric fish respond to the envelope of social electrosensory signals”. J Exp Biol, 215:4196-4207, 2012 . [pdf] *Contributed equally. Ranked as one of the top 3 publications in 2012 in J Exp Biol. Highlighted in Inside JEB: “Gregarious Electric Fish Adjust to Maintain Social Envelope”

E. Roth, K. Zhuang, S. A. Stamper, E. S. Fortune, and N. J. Cowan. “Stimulus predictability mediates a switch in locomotor smooth pursuit performance for Eigenmannia virescens.” Journal of Experimental Biology. 214:1170-1180, 2011. [pdf] [Download cover illustration]

N. J. Cowan and E. S. Fortune. “The critical role of locomotion mechanics in decoding sensory systems.” Journal of Neuroscience, 27(5):1123-1128, 2007. [pdf]

Alican Demir defends his PhD thesis

alican_defense

On Thursday December 11 Alican Demir presented his PhD dissertation research to a packed seminar room at Johns Hopkins. Alican joined the lab as a Freshman in 2013, performed MSE thesis research in the lab, worked as a research specialist for a few years, and then completed his PhD, so his contributions have been monumental in shaping the LIMBS laboratory over the years. Congratulations Alican!

Tactile sensing for rapid locomotion

Short presentation at IROS 2014 by Alican Demir

Special thanks to our collaborators, Jean-Michel Mongeau and Robert J. Full.

Relevant papers:

  • [PDF] [DOI] J. Mongeau, A. Demir, C. Dallmann, K. Jayaram, N. J. Cowan, and R. J. Full, “Mechanical processing via passive dynamic properties of the cockroach antenna can facilitate control during rapid running,” J Exp Biol, vol. 217, iss. 18, p. 3333–3345, 2014.
    [Bibtex] 
    @article{mongeaumechanical2014,
title = {Mechanical processing via passive dynamic properties
of the cockroach antenna can facilitate control
during rapid running},
journal = {J Exp Biol},
author = {Jean-Michel Mongeau and Alican Demir and Chris
J. Dallmann and Kaushik Jayaram and Noah J. Cowan
and Robert J. Full},
year = 2014,
volume = 217,
number = 18,
pages = {3333--3345},
doi = {10.1242/jeb.101501},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.101501},
}
  • [PDF] [DOI] J. Mongeau, A. Demir, J. Lee, N. J. Cowan, and R. J. Full, “Locomotion- and mechanics-mediated tactile sensing: antenna reconfiguration simplifies control during high-speed navigation in cockroaches,” J Exp Biol, vol. 216, iss. 24, p. 4530–4541, 2013.
    [Bibtex] 
    @article{mongeaulocomotion2013,
author = {Jean-Michel Mongeau and Alican Demir and Jusuk Lee
and Noah J. Cowan and Robert J. Full},
title = {Locomotion- and mechanics-mediated tactile sensing:
antenna reconfiguration simplifies control during
high-speed navigation in cockroaches},
journal = {J Exp Biol},
volume = 216,
number = 24,
pages = {4530--4541},
year = 2013,
doi = {10.1242/jeb.083477},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.083477}
}
  • [PDF] [DOI] N. J. Cowan, J. Lee, and R. J. Full, “Task-level control of rapid wall following in the American cockroach,” J Exp Biol, vol. 209, iss. 9, p. 1617–1629, 2006.
    [Bibtex] 
    @ARTICLE{cowantask-level2006,
author = {Noah J. Cowan and Jusuk Lee and Robert J. Full},
title = {Task-level control of rapid wall following in the
{A}merican cockroach},
journal = {J Exp Biol},
year = 2006,
volume = 209,
pages = {1617--1629},
number = 9,
doi = {10.1242/jeb.02166},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.02166}
}
  • [PDF] [DOI] A. Demir, E. W. Samson, and N. J. Cowan, “A tunable physical model of arthropod antennae,” in Proc IEEE Int Conf Robot Autom, Anchorage, AK, USA, 2010, pp. 3793-3798.
    [Bibtex] 
    @inproceedings{demirtunable2010,
author = {Alican Demir and Edward W. Samson and Noah J. Cowan},
title = {A tunable physical model of arthropod antennae},
booktitle = {Proc IEEE Int Conf Robot Autom},
year = 2010,
pages = {3793-3798},
address = {Anchorage, AK, USA},
month = may,
doi = {10.1109/ROBOT.2010.5509323},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1109/ROBOT.2010.5509323}
}
  • [PDF] A. Demir, “A Modular, Tunable Tactile Antenna for Exploring the Mechanics of Sensing,” Master Thesis, 2009.
    [Bibtex] 
    @MASTERSTHESIS{demirmodular2009,
author = {Alican Demir},
title = {A Modular, Tunable Tactile Antenna for Exploring the Mechanics of Sensing},
school = {Johns Hopkins University},
year = 2009,
url = {https://catalyst.library.jhu.edu/catalog/bib_3985789}
}
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