Beyond control: the dynamics of brain-body-environment interaction in motor systems

Discussions of motor behavior have traditionally focused on how a nervous system controls a body. However, it has become increasingly clear that a broader perspective, in which motor behavior is seen as arising from the interaction between neural and biomechanical dynamics, is needed. This chapter reviews a line of work aimed at exploring this perspective in a simple model of walking. Specifically, I describe the evolution of neural pattern generators for a hexapod body, present a neuromechanical analysis of the dynamics of the evolved agents, characterize how the neural and biomechanical constraints structure the fitness space for this task, and examine the impact of network architecture.