Research focus

​The central question that the Takeoka lab addresses is how animals generate and control motor behavior in health and disease. In particular we study mechanisms of circuit assembly, function and plasticity that leads to motor learning using a multi-disciplinary approach including detailed motor kinematic assessments, mouse genetics, viral tracing and manipulation, optogenetic, pharmacogenetic, electrophysiological, and imaging techniques. Our combinatorial approach to the fundamental basis of motor circuit function allows us to understand circuit connectivity and manipulate functions of specified neuronal populations to determine their role in motor circuit output and plasticity.

Our aims are to understand:
• How motor circuits develop to build functional modules at different levels (cortex, brainstem and spinal cord) and how motor learning shapes these circuits.
• How the canonical organization of motor circuits changes after traumatic injury and neurological diseases to compensate for and contribute to motor recovery.

Currently, the lab focuses on how different types of sensory feedback circuits control repetitive and complex motor behavior, with primary focus on somatosensory and visual feedback.