Doug Altshuler

Professor

My research concerns the mechanisms of complex locomotion. Previous work included biomechanics and muscle physiology. Current research is focused on the visuomotor control of maneuvering. I study avian flight because small birds are highly maneuverable and many of their behaviors can be examined in the laboratory.

As an animal moves through the world, images of surfaces and edges in the environment move across the retina, a visual signal known as optic flow. All vertebrates have a rapid pathway for optic flow encoding. In birds, the axons of retinal ganglion cells project to two regions in the midbrain, the lentiformis mesencephali (LM) and the nucleus of the basal optic root (nBOR) that respond only to optic flow signals. In mammals, these regions are called the nucleus of the optic tract and the terminal nuclei, respectively. The optic flow information is transmitted to several pre-motor regions in the hindbrain including the inferior olive, the vestibulocerebellum, and the oculomotor cerebellum. The circuitry has a well-known role in stabilizing eye movements and has been thought to be highly conserved across tetrapods. In contrast to this idea, our laboratory has found that the anatomy of the midbrain optic flow circuit, its neural response properties, and visual guidance strategies vary considerably among bird species. Some of this variation appears to be explained by differences in species visual ecology and mode of locomotion. Collectively, our work is focused on testing the hypothesis that the midbrain optic flow pathway also controls stabilization of the whole body, and the inverse function, maneuverability in response to salient visual signals. We apply approaches in neurophysiology, neuroanatomy, biomechanics, and behaviour.

Stockard Seminar of Anatomy and Physiology

2020
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For Research

Oklahoma State University

23rd Annual Lawrence R. Blinks Memorial Lecture in Physiology

2018
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For Research

Stanford University

Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Fund for Advanced Studies

2017
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For Research

UBC

Peter Wall Scholar

2016
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For Research

Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies

HFSP Awardee

2013
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For Research

Human Frontier Science Program

George A. Bartholomew Award

2007
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For Research

Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology