Researchers are redefining how the brain plans movement

New neurological measurement technologies and algorithms are allowing researchers a more complete look into how the brain functions. Engineers at Stanford are using these tools to better understand how the brain prepares to instruct the body to make a motion and why sometimes we react more quickly than others. In 1991, Carl Lewis was both the fastest man on earth and a profound long jumper, perhaps the greatest track-and-field star of all time in the prime of his career. On June 14 of that year, however, Carl Lewis was human. Leroy Burrell blazed through the 100 meters, besting Lewis by a razor-thin margin of three-hundredths of a second. In the time it takes the shutter to capture a single frame of video, Lewis's 3-year-old world record was gone. In a paper just published in the journal Neuron , a team at the Stanford School of Engineering , led by electrical engineers Krishna Shenoy and Maneesh Sahani, explored the neurological explanations for why Lewis may have lost that day.