A Laboratory in Motion
A report from the Cognition, Action and Sensorimotor Plasticity (CAPS) Unit in Dijon. Join us for a tour of a laboratory that places movement at the heart of health.
In Dijon, things are on the move! The Cognition, Action and Sensorimotor Plasticity (CAPS) Unit, which obtained the Inserm label in 2003, has a sole objective: to study the movement of humans and small animals in all its forms. However, it must be understood that movement is not just about moving one's limbs: the process begins well before this. Movements are planned in the brain and then transformed into motor commands that propagate along the neurons to reach the muscles that will carry them out. In this laboratory, the scientists analyze and model normal and pathological movements in their entirety. "If someone suffers from osteoarthritis, for example, we can't just focus on their joints: we need to look at how the entire chain, from the brain to the muscles, is affected," explains the Director of the Unit, Charalambos Papaxanthis. The cherry on the cake? Solutions which complement clinical treatments and preserve the functional movement's chain of command, even during convalescence.
The laboratory’s core targets? Frail individuals whose mobility is threatened and top athletes. In the CAPS, there is no such thing as borders: researchers specialized in physical and sporting activities rub shoulders with mouse-model brain-plasticity physiologists and clinicians from university hospital departments such as geriatrics, rheumatology, orthopedics, neurology, psychiatry, physical medicine and rehabilitation… Join us for a tour of a laboratory that places movement at the heart of health.
*Inserm/Université de Bourgogne – University Hospital of Dijon Unit 1093.
Find the report in issue 37 of Science&Santé magazine (in French)