How do human beings (and human brains) intentionally coordinate their behavior in space and time? Seems simple, right? We just do it. A moment's thought, however, or the observation of a person with Parkinson's disease trying to reach for a cup of tea, makes one wonder. The Laboratory for Coordination Dynamics is devoted to studying the basic principles and mechanisms underlying coordination in all its various manifestations. We study the integration of processes on three levels of organization, namely behavior, the brain and the environment. Rather than viewing these as separate components, the approach treats them as a single, coevolving dynamical system. The research that has come from this Laboratory has been published in major international journals such as Science and Nature and has also received much attention in the popular press. Our hope is to apply this basic research to brain disorders, learning disabilities and recovery of function following stroke.

Work in the Laboratory for Coordination Dynamics was the first to demonstrate that phase transitions---abrupt, dramatic state changes that arise when the system crosses a threshold or critical point--occur in both behavior and the brain, thereby revealing: 1) that coordination is a self-organized process in which neural areas of the brain function together as a collective unit; and 2) that instability enables the biological system to switch flexibly from one coordinated state to another under changing environmental or internal contexts.

Current research focuses on the mechanisms through which complex biological systems stabilize coordination states under conditions in which they would otherwise become unstable and undergo global change such as phase transitions. New work, for instance, studies how touch, sound, vision and voluntary movement are integrated in the brain into a single, coherent unit. What factors cause these various kinds of information to cohere together or remain separate? And how does the brain do that?

In conjunction with behavioral measures, obtained e.g., by OPTOTRACK and other custom made devices, The Laboratory for Coordination Dynamics uses various non-invasive techniques for recording and quantifying brain activity, such as electroencephalography (EEG), magnetoencephalography (MEG) and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) The research acts as a test-bed for, and an impetus to, theory development. Theorists and experimentalists work closely together (see also Laboratory for Theoretical Neurosciences) to elaborate-through mathematical modeling, analysis and computer simulation-a theory of cognitive and brain function. This will greatly help the understanding and management of mental dysfunction often observable, for example, in the so-called movement disorders.