Commission for the "Neurosciences: Sensorimotor Activity in Human Beings and Machines"
Sensorimotor studies examine the question of how sensory information from the eyes, sense of equilibrium, skin and muscles is detected, interpreted and then transformed into motor activity to fulfil a certain purpose and aim. The laws that govern sensorimotor control in biological and technical systems are closely related. Interdisciplinary cooperation between technology, medicine and industry can therefore establish interconnections between structure and function, biology and computer modelling, medicine and technology. The task of the Commission, which was founded in 2001, is to bring together and support the various elements of sensorimotor research.
2006 was a significant year in the development of a Bavarian Research Centre for the Neurosciences. The "Munich Center for Neurosciences – Brain and Mind" was established in Großhadern and Martinsried within the framework of "LMU innovativ" (coordinator: Benedikt Grothe; deputy: Thomas Brandt). Its purpose is to integrate the neurosciences in Munich and surmount the traditional barriers between the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities. Three new university chairs will be established: for Computational Neurosciences (to strengthen the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience supported by the DFG), for functional imaging in cognitive neurosciences, and for neurophilosophy.
Within the framework of the Elite study programmes in Bavaria the "Master of Neurosciences" was established, and within the framework of the Excellence Initiative, the "Graduate School of Systemic Neurosciences", a central link connecting the training systems both vertically and horizontally. The involvement of both universities in Munich, the Max-Planck-Institute for Neurobiology and the Helmholtz Center means that Munich is becoming a major international centre for the neurosciences.
A new confidence-inspiring generation of robots that are modeled on the human being: an artificial hand with four fingers with twelve degress of freedom together with a lightweight robot with seven degrees of freedom.