We are a cross-disciplinary research group striving to understand the mechanisms underlying the control of natural movement and action sequences.
To this end, we study the adaptive locomotion abilities of insects with a research focus on the function of active tactile sensing (touch) and distributed proprioception (the sense of posture). Methodologically, we combine approaches from behavioural physiology (e.g., motion capture), electrophysiology (e.g., intracellular recordings) and biomimetic modeling in software and hardware.
The Department of Biological Cybernetics was founded by Holk Cruse in 1981. In 2009, it was fundamentally restructured. It is now headed by Volker Dürr.
11/2020: The Department congratulates Gaëtan Lepreux on his successful completion of his PhD. The title of his doctoral dissertation is Mediating tactually guided behaviour: State-dependent and sensory modulation of activity in an identified descending interneuron.
07/2020: Prof. Dr. Josef Schmitz, associate professor and long-term member of our research group, retired after 40 years of teaching and research at Bielefeld University. We are thankful for having had him and wish him all the best for his retirement. Keep in touch!
09/2019: The Department welcomes the new lab-member Dr. Martin Strube-Bloss, who joined us coming from Julius-Maximilians-University, Würzburg. Martin will take over teaching responsibilities from Prof. Dr. Josef Schmitz in 2020.