Craig Evinger Professor PhD, Univ. My laboratory employs a combination of physiological, behavioral, anatomical and clinical studies to investigate motor learning. We use blinking as a simple model system to explore these neural mechanisms of behavior.
Blinks arise from relatively simple neural circuits that control an uncomplicated mechanical system.
Despite this relatively simple neural circuitry, the blink reflex manifests complex behaviors, such as adaptive motor learning and associative learning. For example, damaging a small portion of the facial nerve partially innervating the lid closing muscle, orbicularis oculi, precipitates a dramatic, adaptive increase in the drive on orbicularis couli motoneurons to compensate for the weakened muscle. Currently, we are exploring the sites of this motor learning in the cerebellum and brainstem. We also investigate the neural mechanisms promoting associative learning, i.e. conditioned reflexes, in which a subject learns to connect an innocuous stimulus, such as a tone, with a blink evoking stimulus. Currently, these studies focus on the brainstem neural changes underlying the expression of conditioned responses.