Nature & Nurture #94: Dr. Scott Grafton - The Neuroscience of Goal-Directed Movement

Dr. Scott Grafton is a Distinguished Professor of Psychological & Brain Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He directs the Action Lab, which focuses on the neuroscience of goal-directed movement. 

In this episode we discuss Dr. Grafton’s background in neurology research, and the historical progression of integrating the neuroscience of movement, perception, and goal-setting. We talk about how modern neuroimaging techniques replicated and expanded upon findings from early neuropsychological studies of brain damage, and how Dr. Grafton uses dense-sampling techniques to scan individual’s brains repeatedly over short intervals, to study how learning changes the structural and functional organization of brain regions involved in perception and motor control. Lastly, we talk about Dr. Grafton’s ongoing research of how the brain interacts with the rest of the body during physical activity to maintain allostasis, and the implications this has for our understanding of the links between perception, action, and brain health.