Purpose of this book is to combine different approaches inthe study of arm movement in space in order to create newsynergy between domains of researchwhich tend to bedeveloped independently. It is from these synergies that anew understanding of the control of arm and hand movementcan ermerge.Previous books have been devoted to artificialneural networks for sensorimotor control (for exampleAdvanced Neural Computers, R. Eckmiller ed. Elsevier).The present book is the first one to propose a precise anddirect comparison between current computational developmentand new experimental results of neurophysiology and newexperimental results of neurophysiology and neurophysics.The book covers different levels of neuralcontrol: spinalcord, red nucleus, premotor cortex, motor cortex,parietalcortex, thalamus and cerebellum. An important place isdevoted to the problems of muscle coordination, internalrepresentations of movement variables, in different nervousregions and to the problem of coordinate transformationsunderlying reaching and manipulation.For the physiologist, the book proposes not only acomprehensive picture of new experimental results but alsoa theoretical basis for a better understandingof centralcoding of movement by neuroinal populations. For neuralnetworks and robotics students, this book provides a veryrich knowledge on the way the brain controls arm movementsby using visual information, it can offer them new conceptsand ideas to generate more efficient artificial systemshaving in mind the powerful capacity of the human brain.
