David J. Ostry is an engineer

Engineer

An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...

 and neuroscientist

Neuroscientist

A neuroscientist is an individual who studies the scientific field of neuroscience or any of its related sub-fields...

 whose research focuses on human motor control

Motor control

Motor control are information processing related activities carried out by the central nervous system that organize the musculoskeletal system to create coordinated movements and skilled actions...

.

He is a professor of Psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

 at McGill University

McGill University

Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...

 and a senior scientist at Haskins Laboratories

Haskins Laboratories

Haskins Laboratories is an independent, international, multidisciplinary community of researchers conducting basic research on spoken and written language. Founded in 1935 and located in New Haven, Connecticut since 1970, Haskins Laboratories is a private, non-profit research institute with a...

 in New Haven, Connecticut

New Haven, Connecticut

New Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut and the sixth-largest in New England. According to the 2010 Census, New Haven's population increased by 5.0% between 2000 and 2010, a rate higher than that of the State of Connecticut, and higher than that of the state's five largest cities, and...

. His research focuses on understanding the biological mechanisms of voluntary movement and deals equally with speech production and human arm motion. He uses mathematical models, robots and behavioral and physiological techniques to assess motor function and the characteristics of motor learning

Motor learning

Motor learning is a “relatively permanent” change, resulting from practice or a novel experience, in the capability for responding...

. The overall goals of his work have been to understand the interplay of sensory and motor function and most recently, to understand how motor learning and adaptation

Adaptation

An adaptation in biology is a trait with a current functional role in the life history of an organism that is maintained and evolved by means of natural selection. An adaptation refers to both the current state of being adapted and to the dynamic evolutionary process that leads to the adaptation....

affects sensory function in speech and limb movement.

Representative Publications

• Ostry, D. J., Gribble, P. L. and Gracco, V. L. (1996). Coarticulation of jaw movements in speech production: Is context sensitivity in speech kinematics centrally planned? The Journal of Neuroscience, 16(4), 1570-1579.
• Gribble, P.L. and Ostry, D.J. (1996) Origins of the power law relation between movement velocity and curvature: Modeling the effects of muscle mechanics and limb dynamics. Journal of Neurophysiology, 76, 2853-2860.
• Laboissière, R., Ostry, D.J. and Feldman, A.G. (1996) The control of multi-muscle systems: Human jaw and hyoid movements. Biological Cybernetics, 74, 373-384.
• Gribble P.L., Ostry D.J., Sanguineti V. and Laboissière R. (1998). Are complex control signals required for human arm movement? Journal of Neurophysiology, 79: 1409-1424.
• Gribble, P.L. and Ostry, D.J. (1999) Compensation for interaction torques during single and multi-joint limb movements. Journal of Neurophysiology, 82, 2310-2326.
• Gribble P.L. and Ostry D.J. (2000). Compensation for loads during arm movements using equilibrium-point control. Experimental Brain Research, 135: 474-82.
• Petitto L.A., Holowka S, Sergio L.E. and Ostry D.J. (2001). Language rhythms in baby hand movements. Nature, 413: 35-6.
• Tremblay S., Shiller D.M. and Ostry D.J. (2003). Somatosensory basis of speech production. Nature, 423: 866-869.
• Ostry D.J. and Feldman A.G. (2003). A critical evaluation of the force control hypothesis in motor control. Experimental Brain Research, 221: 275-288.
• Malfait N. and Ostry D.J. (2004). Is interlimb transfer of force-field adaptation a "cognitive" response to the sudden introduction of load? Journal of Neuroscience, 24: 8084-8089.
• Mattar A.A.G. and Ostry D.J. (2007) Modifiability of generalization in dynamics learning. Journal of Neurophysiology, 98:3321-3329.
• Mattar A.A.G. and Ostry D.J. (2007). Neural averaging in motor learning. Journal of Neurophysiology, 97: 220-228.
• Nasir S.M. and Ostry D.J. (2008) Speech motor learning in profoundly deaf adults. Nature Neuroscience, 11:1217–1222.
• Ito T., Tiede M. and Ostry D.J. (2009) Somatosensory function in speech perception. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 106:1245–1248.
• Nasir S.M. and Ostry D.J. (2009) Auditory plasticity and speech motor learning. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 106:20470–20475.
• Ostry D.J., Darainy M., Mattar A.A.G., Wong J. and Gribble P.L. (2010) Somatosensory plasticity and motor learning. Journal of Neuroscience, 30:5384-5393
• Mattar A.A.G. and Ostry D.J. (2010) Generalization of dynamics learning across changes in movement amplitude. Journal of Neurophysiology, 104:426-438.