The legendary ability of cats to fall back on their paws could one day help humans walk better after a spinal cord injury, according to research done at the Université de Sherbrooke. The knowledge could also help seniors whose sense of balance is more precarious. In collaboration with researchers from Georgia Tech and Drexel, the Sherbrooke researchers wanted to better understand how what science calls a somatosensory return allows a cat to coordinate the movement of its four legs. Boris Prilutsky, a professor in the School of Biological Sciences, collaborated on the research.