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RESEARCH

NEUROMOTOR CONTROL & NEUROREHABILITATION

Knowledge about how the brain and spinal cord control human movement can be applied to improve recovery from nervous system injuries. Among the areas we study:

  • MOTOR LEARNING AND NEUROPLASTICITY:
    Underlying neural substrates and brain mechanisms of motor learning to design and test novel non-pharmacologic interventions for motor skill acquisition
  • COMPUTATIONAL MOTOR CONTROL:
    Computational models of motor learning and neural plasticity in healthy and lesioned brains
  • NEUROMECHANICS:
    Interactions between muscles, sensory organs and the central nervous system to explain motion
  • STROKE RECOVERY AND REHABILITATION:
    Integrative approaches to quantify motor dysfunction and identify factors that guide learning, recovery and rehabilitation after stroke
  • PELVIC FLOOR MUSCLE CONTROL AND REHABILITATION:
    Basic research into how brain networks control pelvic floor muscles and how these networks become dysfunctional
  • MULTI-MUSCLE COORDINATION:
    Interpretation of kinesiological data to create models of movement involving joints and muscle coordination
  • NONINVASIVE NEUROIMAGING AND NEURO-STIMULATION:
    Various techniques to noninvasively image and modulate the structure or function of the nervous system
  • BRAIN CONNECTOMICS OF MOVEMENT CONTROL:
    Brain mapping to learn the functional and structural connectivity of separate motor cortical centers involved in controlling individual muscles
  • MOTOR CONTROL DURING UPPER-EXTREMITY TASKS:
    How the structure of the body and properties of the neuromuscular system cooperate to produce versatile function and give rise to disability
  • SMART TECHNOLOGIES TO PROMOTE RECOVERY:
    Development of techniques and tools to quantify neuromuscular control