The stability of movement is essential for our daily activities — like carrying a mug of hot coffee while pressing on a door handle with the elbow of the arm holding the mug.

Mark Latash, Distinguished Professor of Kinesiology at Penn State and this autumn’s Gresham lecturer, will introduce the idea of “synergies” as our body’s mechanism to ensure movement stability. His lecture, “Biological Movement: Healthy and Impaired Control of Its Stability,” will explore studies of neurological patients and different parts of the brain that control movement stability and what new studies can mean for the future of early detection of neurological disorders.

Latash’s talk takes place at 5 p.m. Oct. 18 in 148 Diefendorf Hall and via Zoom. The twice-yearly Gresham Lecture is sponsored by the Department of Rehabilitation Science.

Latash, who is also director of the Motor Control Laboratory at Penn State, focuses his research on the control and coordination of human voluntary movements, movement disorders in neurological disorders and effects of rehabilitation. He is the author of “Control of Human Movement,” “The Neurophysiological Basis of Movement,” “Fundamentals of Motor Control” and “Physics of Biological Action and Perception,” among other books.

Latash has also edited 10 books, two of which are featured translations of classical monographs by Nikolai Bernstein: “Dexterity and Its Development” and “Bernstein’s Construction of Movements.” He has published more than 450 papers in refereed journals. Founding editor of the journal “Motor Control” (1996 to 2007) he served as president of the International Society of Motor Control from 2001-05 and is a recipient of the Bernstein Prize in motor control.