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Nature Neuroscience 10, 940–941 (1 August 2007) | doi:10.1038/nn0807-940

Walking the walk

R Christopher Miall

Walking around in the real world, as opposed to an uncluttered laboratory, requires flexible and adaptive fine-tuning of the basic alternating stepping pattern of our two legs. Think of Michael Jackson's moonwalk, the asymmetric gait of a hemiplegic or even the sharp cornering of a cockroach on a messy kitchen floor; they are all examples of highly adapted stepping patterns.