Research Supervisor Connect

Associate Professor Nicholas O'Dwyer

Project opportunities with Associate Professor Nicholas O'Dwyer

• Energetics and coordination of skilled movement

About Associate Professor Nicholas O'Dwyer

Nicholas O'Dwyer seeks to integrate multi-disciplinary knowledge from motor behaviour, neurophysiology, exercise, biomechanics, neurology and engineering in order to understand how movements are learned and controlled and how these processes are affected in people with stroke, cerebral palsy, stuttering and facial nerve palsy.

Nicholas O'Dwyer investigates how movements are learned and controlled and how control by the brain is disrupted in disorders of movement.

Associate Professor Nicholas O’Dwyer has a background in psychology and his research has centred on the information-processing mechanisms underlying control of normal movement and the neurological disorders of stroke, cerebral palsy, stuttering and facial nerve palsy. He has pursued his research from a distinctly multi-disciplinary perspective, integrating knowledge from motor behaviour, neurophysiology, exercise, biomechanics, neurology and engineering; and this is reflected in the varied journals in which he publishes. His research has spanned the areas of speech motor control, reflex physiology, muscle growth mechanisms, computational modelling, neural information processing, and coordination of multi-joint movement. His work on muscle stretch reflexes and the reflex disorder of spasticity is recognised internationally, with one of his major papers in this area being cited over 120 times, one of the highest rates for this field. His most significant research contribution relevant to the current project has been the demonstration of the important role of metabolic energy cost in the coordination movement and that this energy cost is reduced as people become more skilled in a given action; in other words, greater energetic efficiency is a component of motor skill. This work has been taken up prominently in the only major textbook of motor control and learning that addresses the topic of energetics in movement. His earlier work on computer modelling of voluntary tracking movements led to the development of the Adaptive Model Theory, a computational model of the neural information processing that underlies the learning and control of voluntary movement in both normal and brain damaged people. This model integrates neuroscience with current engineering theory of adaptive control. In the past six years he has supervised 6 PhD students and 6 Honours students (all H1, two University medals) to graduation. A/Prof O’Dwyer is Head of the Discipline of Exercise and Sport Science at the University of Sydney. He teaches units of study in motor control and learning to undergraduate students in exercise and sport science (~150) and physiotherapy (~160), and to postgraduate students in health science (~25). He served as departmental postgraduate research coordinator responsible for ~50 research students for five years to 2003. He was the Faculty Associate Dean (Research) for six years to 2004.

Selected publications