Professor Michael Deeb Weaver and Students Featured on UB Now

Clinical Assistant Professor of Dance Michael Deeb Weaver and several of his students are featured in a new article on UB Now about psychoneuromuscular theory, and the ways in which a strong mind/body connection helps dancers to learn and remember dance by imagining movement even when still.

Excerpt: “The psychoneuromuscular theory suggests that when we imagine a movement, our brain sends out signals to the muscles that are similar to the signals that would be sent if we were actually performing the movement.

‘There’s research out there that supports this idea of visualization. If you lie down and visualize one side of your body stretching and elongating your muscle fibers, then you stand up and are warmer on that side of your body,, Deeb Weaver says. ‘So that becomes a physical reaction that started with a mental image, mixed with a synaptic or neural cycle of neuroplasticity.’”

Read the full article by Vicky Santos: https://www.buffalo.edu/ubnow/stories/2023/11/deeb-weaver-science-of-dance.html