Meeting Abstract
Coordinated landing requires preparation. Limbs must be positioned to hit the ground first and joint and muscle stiffness need to be modulated with respect to impact conditions to decrease muscle and skeletal damage. Such preparation requires the ability to accurately predict the timing and magnitude of impact forces, a potentially complex feat of sensorimotor integration. Cane toads (Bufo marinus) have recently become a model for studying the biomechanics and neuromuscular control of landing, in part because they appear to be able to predictably tune pre-landing forelimb muscle activity patterns to hop length. Here we test the role of three potentially important sensory modalities in facilitating coordinated landing: vision, vestibular feedback, and hindlimb proprioception. Experiments involved using high-speed video recordings and electromyography to compare forelimb kinematics and muscle activity in cane toads before and after manipulations compromising the function of a particular sensory system. Preliminary results indicate that removing vision has the smallest effect on movements and muscle activity associated with coordinated landing, while ablating the vestibular system effectively eliminates a toad’s capacity to coordinate landing after a hop.
