Motor commands integrate with sensory feedback to enable purposeful movement. CNS injury or disease that impairs movement often interrupts or alters both motor and sensory circuits. To restore movement, motor and sensory circuits have been generally targeted independently, which often leads to suboptimal effects. In contrast to a focus on separate pathways, the aim of this Research Topic is to collect articles on the interaction of motor and sensory connections by manipulating each in a coordinated way. For example, electrical stimulation of the motor cortex and sensory peripheral nerves have been timed to arrive synchronously in the brain or spinal cord, which results in better recovery when compared to single stimulation. The reliance on coordinated manipulation means that the specific target is the interaction of sensory and motor pathways. The manipulations that target integration of the sensory and motor systems are diverse and include co-stimulation (electrical, magnetic, optogenetic, and chemogenetic), experience (sensory stimulation/feedback), movement training, genetic or viral manipulations to promote motor and sensory axon regrowth, or their combinations. The key uniting principle is that the intervention has to engage both motor and sensory systems in a coordinated fashion.
Submission deadline: 30 July 2021