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Planning of movement sequences
What happens in our brain before we initiate a skilled sequence of movements, like typing a message on a phone, playing a melody on the piano, or uttering a sentence? Does our brain play back each action one-by-one as its activity cascades through a series of states, or does it prepare individual actions in parallel before we start the movement? We established a tool to read out the neural organisation of sequential actions during motor planning non-invasively using MEG (Neuron 2019), fMRI (Journal of Neuroscience 2023, Journal of Neuroscience 2024), as behaviourally (Journal of Neurophysiology 2021). These approaches provide a window into the structure and content of sequence planning and how it affect subsequent performance. Our goal is to develop non-invasive neurotechnological tools to modify neural patterns before movement starts to enhance skilled action learning and control to boost neurorehabilitation after stroke and in Parkinson's disease.
Neural representation of skilled timing
Speaking, playing a musical instrument, using a tool - these skilled movements require a high degree of temporal precision to be performed successfully. How does the brain enable us to learn and store these patterns of movement timing? We aim to address the underlying neural mechanisms at the neuroimaging level in humans (fMRI, MEG, EEG) and at the single-cell level in the mouse model. Together with our collaborators, we are studying how different brain areas encode skilled timing and parse a complex action into its constituent components (J Neurophys 2013 (Behaviour), eLife 2014 (fMRI), Cell Reports 2015 (single cell), TiCS 2015, Springer 2016).
Task-dependent dystonia
Together with collaborators at UCL/St George's, we are studying a condition that affects highly skilled action sequences selectively – task-specific dystonia (e.g. writer’s cramp, musician’s dystonia) – with no treatment being predictively effective. Our new framework considers task-specific dystonia in the context of motor skill representations in health, with the important implication for prevention and retraining. Nature Review Neuroscience 2018
Modulating movement planning via neurofeedback (brain-computer-interface)
Can we alter neural activity in the hundreds of milliseconds before movement execution to improve performance? In a cross-disciplinary seed collaboration funded by ESRC/MRC N-Code we aim to develop a EEG neurofeedback application that allows participants to monitor and learn to control action planning activity in real-time with the goal to optimise action performance (GitHub). This work will facilitate new rehabilitation pathways.
Neural basis of sequence planning in Developmental Coordination Disorders/dyspraxia
Disorders of motor coordination such as dyspraxia/DCD affect the learning and control of skilled multi-movement sequences, as opposed to single movements. Unfortunately, current understanding of the neural etiology of DCD remains limited. Our goal is to utilise analytical approaches developed recently in our lab to assess the disruptions in motor planning by enabling a behavioural and neural ‘readout’ of the organisation of sequential movements before execution takes place. This line of work aims to prepare the ground for new occupational and non-invasive brain-computer-interface based interventions targeting the neural organisation of movements prior to execution.
Auditory-motor integration of musical rhythms
Why do humans tend to move in synchrony with an auditory pulse, e.g. when they listen to music? What neural mechanisms give rise to the urge and ability to accurately couple one's own movements to an auditory rhythm?
We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to investigate how a motor-related brain region with prominent connections to auditory areas - the ventral premotor cortex (PMv) - contributes to auditory-motor integration of musical rhythm. Our findings demonstrate a critical role of the PMv in both perceptual preference (Human Brain Mapping 2010 (fMRI), Human Brain Mapping 2011 (TMS)) of and motor coupling to a musical rhythm (PLoS ONE 2011 (fMRI-TMS)). By combining TMS and fMRI we could also reveal compensatory neural mechanisms after PMv disruption. PhD thesis
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