Objectives

The purpose of Center for Sensory-Motor Interaction (SMI) is to study basic and clinical aspects of human sensory-motor interaction and to develop new diagnostic and therapeutic methods.

Organisation

Center for Sensory-Motor Interaction (SMI) is an inter-disciplinary, international center with a scientific and technical-administrative staff of 70 persons. Approximately 50% of the researchers come from abroad.

SMI was established as a Center of Excellence in 1993 with support from the Danish National Research Foundation. In 1997, the International Doctoral School in Biomedical Science and Engineering was established in affiliation to SMI. In 2006 the School was further able to offer the first doctoral programme for elite students.

The major funding sources are private foundations, national research and research training programmes, international programmes (EU and NIH), and industrial collaboration. The annual turnover is approx. 20 mill. DKK (2.7 mill. €). In addition, a number of tenured researchers are affliated to SMI. Approx. 1,500 m2 of office and 650 m2 of modern, fully equipped laboratories are available to SMI, which is now part of the Department of Health Science and Technology.

SMI is headed by Professor Lars Arendt-Nielsen (co-founder) and Associate Professor Johannes J. Struijk.

The Center has three major activities: Research, training, and innovation.

Research

Research is organised in two research groups:

• Pain and motor systems
• Motor control and neurorehabilitation

Each group is responsible for a number of laboratories.

Pain and Motor Systems

The objectives are:

• To develop and apply quantitative techniques to induce pain experimentally to human skin, muscles, and viscera and to develop and apply techniques to assess nociceptive responses under normal and pathophysiological conditions
• To modulate experimental and clinical pain by physiological and pharmacological procedures
• To study the impact of pain on motor control

The group is headed by Professor Lars Arendt-Nielsen.

Motor Control and Neurorehabilitation

The objectives are:

• To investigate the neural coding of the human sensory-motor system and develop new technologies for interfacing, stimulating, recording, and processing electrical signals from muscles and nerve tissue
• To perform experimental and theoretical studies on neuroelectrical interfaces 

The group is headed by Associate Professor Johannes J. Struijk.

Training

The International Doctoral School in Biomedical Science and Engineering offers Ph.D. programmes within the research areas of SMI and other closely related biomedical areas.

The School is headed by Associate Professor Thomas Graven-Nielsen.

In 2006, the School was awarded a grant from The Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation to start a doctoral programme for elite students.

At the master level SMI contributes to a 5-year programme in health technology and a 5-year programme in medicine with industial specialisation.

Innovation

Based on grants from the North Jutland region and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation SMI launched an innovation programme in 2006. The aim is to develop SMI research results into commercial products in co-operation with biomedical and pharmacological industry.

Co-operation

SMI benefits from its participation in a number of institutional networks within biomedical science, neuroscience, and clinical disciplines. A substantial resource is present in the established research co-operation and partnerships with a wide range of research centres, hospitals, and companies.

Currently, co-operation includes more than 40 organisations in 15 countries and 20 national and international companies.

SMI has formalised research collaboration and training with three Danish research centers:

The Center for Basic and Clinical Research in Arthrosis is a research centre linking the basic pain, motor control, and biomechanical research at SMI with the orthopeadics clinic at Aalborg Hospital. The objectives are to develop new approaches for preventing chronification of pain, improve training paradigms, and the treatment of patients with arthrosis. The Center is headed by Dr. Ole Simonsen (Aalborg Hospital) and Professor Lars Arendt-Nielsen.

Center for Visceral Biomechanics and Pain is located at Aalborg Hospital. The objectives are to study the sensory-motor and biomechanical function of visceral organs (especially the gut) and to shed light on the pain and biomechanical mechanisms involved in organic diseases and in functional disorders such as, e.g. non-cardiac chest pain. The Center is headed by Professor Asbjørn M. Drewes (Aalborg Hospital and Aalborg University) and Professor Hans Gregersen (Aalborg Hospital and Aalborg University).

The Parker Institute is located at the rheumatologic research unit of Frederiksberg Hospital, Copenhagen. The objectives are research in musculoskeletal diseases to optimise diagnosis and develop new efficient treatments, both pharmacological and other kinds of treatment. The Center is headed by Adjunct Professor Bente Danneskiold-Samsøe and Research Professor Henning Bliddal.