My research introduces bat flight as a novel model to study how the mammalian brain controls complex, natural motor behaviors. Bat flight’s unique combination of high-dimensional complex control over hand like wings, with the intrinsic reproducibility of their flight patterns, offers a novel approach to the study of dexterous motor control. With newly developed wireless large-scale neural recordings and new methods of reversable neural disruption, this study will explore the motor cortical computations that support free flight in bats. This marks the first investigation of motor cortex of free flight in bats and will expand upon our current understanding of the cortical mechanisms that govern dexterous motor control in the mammalian brain.
