News

Brains and Machines Podcast


Fall 2023
Prof. Hartmann appeared on the Brains and Machines podcast: Understanding Real Brains with Robotic Rats, and Vice Versa.

Congrats Yifu!

Fall 2023
Congrats to Yifu Luo on his graduation!

MS Projects Available

Fall 2023
We have several MS projects available to students with a strong background in programming and/or mechanics.



Annual Barrels Society Meeting

November 2023
Prof. Hartmann attended the 36th Annual Barrels Meeting this November in Baltimore, MD.


Conference at Janelia

September 2023
Prof. Hartmann attended a conference at Janelia -- Simulated Bodies: Whole Body Biomechanical Models.

Quantifying the facial and whisker morphology of the mouse

Summer 2023
Happy to announce the acceptance of our paper quantifying the facial and whisker morphology of the mouse. Find the publication here. Congratulations to Chris Bresee, Hayley Belli, and Yifu Luo!


On the intrinsic curvature of animal whiskers

January 2023
Luo Y, Hartmann MJZ (2023) On the intrinsic curvature of animal whiskers. PLoS One 18: e0269210

Congrats to the lab's 2022 PhD grads!

2022
Nadina Zweifel, Hannah Emnett, Schnaude Dorizan, and Admir Resulaj have all graduated and have moved on to exciting new adventures.


Nick's article published in PNAS

Summer 2021
"Continuous, multidimensional coding of 3D complex tactile stimuli by primary sensory neurons of the vibrissal system". Read it here.



Nadina's article published in PNAS

Summer 2021
"A dynamical model for generating synthetic data to quantify active tactile sensing behavior in the rat". Read it here.



Media

Science Bytes

An overview of whisking and whisker mechanics is shown in this video from Science Bytes. The video explains some basic mechanical principles, such as how stiffness and distance affect how much the whisker bends. The video also describes how the bending of the whisker underlies the rat's extraordinary sensing capabilities and explains some connections to future developments in robotics.

Science Friday

This interview and video from National Public Radio's program Science Friday explains some ways our laboratory is investigating the sense of touch and sensorimotor integration. When a whisker bends against an object, forces and torques are generated at the whisker base. By quantifying these mechanical signals we are able to begin to understand what information the brain is receiving.

Science Nation

How do animals gather sensory data to perceive the world? This video from the National Science Foundation's Science Nation explores how forces and moments are sensed by the rat's follicle during whisking and how that information is transferred to the brain. It then explores how this information can be applied to robotic whiskers and other robot applications.