Research is systematic investigation performed to answer a particular question posed. It is imperative that this investigation is performed by posing the right questions. Right questions are those that when answered, will add a reasonable amount of value to the society and adds to the stock of knowledge. Most importantly, research is expected to lead to a particular kind of joy, "the joy of discovery", which further would lead to harmony with laws of nature. Above all, research is expected to lead to humility and further enthusiasm to investigate and understand.

Research Topics

Our research interests are in the area of neurophysiological control/coordination of movements in health and disease. We use the human hand as the model system to study dexterous movements. dexterous manipulation is believed to be an uniquely human feature.

Almost all our research studies revolve around two central questions:

• How does the human hand adjust to dynamic and static mechanical perturbations during prismatic precision grip (five fingered grasping)? To this end, we develop novel perturbation systems to introduce mechanical perturbations on fingers and studying how the fingers adjust to such perturbations using both feedforward and feedback mechanisms. We are also interested in studying these effects in people with neuromotor disorders.
• How do humans learn and retain simple (and not so simple) motor skills? Also, how does learning one motor skill transfer to learning of a related (but not same) motor skill? To this end, we have developed a novel glove based typing system that we use to study a motor sequence learning task.

Significance:

• Our research addresses some fundamental questions about the nature, extent and limits of dexterous manipulation in humans. We believe that by addressing these fundamental questions, we can get insights into the nature of pathology/adaptations to pathology in people with neuromotor disorders (people whose brain is damaged due to pathologies such as Stroke, Parkinson's Disease etc). Using careful experiments combined with theoretical and computational approaches, we can better understand grasping in healthy humans and in people with diseases. Hence, an important application of our work is in the area of Neurorehabilitation.

Funding:

• We thank the following agencies/schemes for their generous support to our research:
• BDTD, Department of Science and Technology, 2019 - 2021 (Rs. 37 Lakhs)
• Cognitive Science initiative, Department of Science and Technology, 2018 - 2021 (Rs. 45 Lakhs)
• New Faculty Seed Grant, IIT Madras (Rs. 28 Lakhs).
• Cognitive Science Research initiative, Department of science and technology, 2015 - 2018 (Rs. 70 Lakhs).