Progress in Motor Control Vol. 1 : Bernstein's Traditions in Movement Studies

This book sets a new standard as the leading state-of-the-art account on motor control by using a Bernsteinian integration of information from different fields of study.

It features sixteen chapters by internationally known researchers, including four authors from the ex-USSR who worked directly with Nikolai Bernstein, the first scientist working in the area now defined as motor control. Each chapter addresses urgent problems of motor control across a spectrum of topics.

Written in a reader-friendly style, this volume summarizes the latest motor control issues, research, and theories, and identifies problems in pressing need of investigation. This unique forum features 106 pieces of art and 7 tables to reflect the different fields of study related to the organization of voluntary movements and improve interdisciplinary communication.

Prominent motor control scientists integrate information across different fields of study and provide a contemporary reflection of Bernstein's legacy in the nineties in this first volume of Progress in Motor Control.

Mark L. Latash, PhD, is an associate professor of kinesiology at Penn State University. Since the 1970s, he has worked extensively in the areas of normal and disordered motor control. His work has included animal studies, human experiments, modeling, and clinical studies.

Latash chaired the organizing committee of the international conference, "Bernstein's Traditions in Motor Control," which took place at Penn State in August of 1996. Chapters of Progress in Motor Control, Volume 1 were written by invited speakers at the conference.

The author of Control of Human Movement (Human Kinetics, 1993), Latash also translated Bernstein's classic, On Dexterity and its Development (Erlbaum), in 1996.

Latash earned a master's degree in physics of living systems from the Moscow Physico-Technical Institute in 1976 and a PhD in physiology from Rush University in 1989. He is a member of the Society for Neuroscience and the American Society of Biomechanics.

Latash lives in State College, Pennsylvania. His leisure activities include spending time with friends, playing guitar and singing, and reading.