Speakers

Willem B. Verwey is full professor since 2003 at the University of Twente. His main research area concerns the cognitive and neural basis of sequential motor skills. He developed the Discrete Sequence Production (DSP) task in the 1990s (Verwey, 1999) and used it as the main tool for developing the Cognitive framework of Sequential Motor Behavior (C-SMB; Verwey et al, 2015).

Keywords: serial motor skills, discrete sequence production task, learning, reaction time, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

Prof. David L. Wright

David Wright is the Omar Smith Endowed Chair and a Professor of Kinesiology at Texas A&M University. He currently uses a variety of non-invasive brain stimulation tools and imaging to supplemental behavioral interventions to determine how post-practice consolidation facilitates learning.

Keywords: Learning, Consolidation, Skill, Non-invasive Brain Stimulation, Practice, Contextual Interference

Prof. Rachael Seidler

Rachael Seidler is a Professor in the Department of Applied Physiology and Kinesiology at the University of Florida. Her research focuses on the neural control of movement in health and disease, with a specific focus on motor learning.

Keywords: aging, spaceflight, adaptation, neural control of movement

Assoc. Prof. Maarten Immink

Maarten Immink’s research investigates the mind, brain and body interactions that we rely on to attain, regain and maintain skilled movement. His work informs principles for training design to optimize skill acquisition from novice to expert stages of learning.

Keywords: motor learning; skill acquisition; response preparation; attention; goal priming; cognitive control; post-training processing

Assoc. Prof. Jordan Taylor

Jordan Taylor is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience Institute at Princeton University and Director of the Intelligent Performance and Adaptation Laboratory. His research seeks to understand how explicit, cognitive strategies influence sensorimotor skill acquisition and motor control. Ultimately, the hope for this work is that it could lead to the development of optimal neurorehabilitation protocols to guide learning toward different, but still functioning learning mechanisms following stroke or disease. His research has been supported by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, and J. Blair Pyne Fund.

Prof. Stephan P. Swinnen

Stephan Swinnen is full professor and director of the Movement Control & Neuroplasticity Research Group at the Faculty of Movement and Revalidation Sciences, KU Leuven, Belgium. He studies the neural mechanisms underlying movement control and neuroplasticity under normal and pathological conditions, using a multidisciplinary approach spanning the behavioural sciences and the (cognitive) neurosciences.

Keywords: interlimb coordination, bimanual skill, neural plasticity, brain connectivity neurochemicals, lifespan development, aging, traumatic brain injury and medical imaging and brain stimulation technologies

Assoc. Prof. Rob van der Lubbe

Rob is an Associate Professor at the University of Twente, The Netherlands and keenly interested in the mechanisms of motor imagery as a form of enhancement technique in motor learning and development of skills. He is an associate editor of Biological Psychology, an expert in EEG and uses it to uncover neurocognitive mechnisms of motor learning.

Asst. Prof. Russell Chan

Russell is a motor neuroscientist with a fascination of the mind and its potential for cognitive and motor performances. Using different neuroimaging techniques, he investigates how mind-body techniques like mindfulness affects performance, health and well-being. He aims to share his work knowledge on topics about meditation, conciousnes, neuroscience, motor control and learning

Asst. Prof. Marit Ruitenberg

Marit Ruitenberg is an Assistant Professor in Neuropsychology at Leiden University, NL. Her work focuses on the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying sensorimotor function across the lifespan, both in health and neuro(psycho)logical disorders. With her studies, she aims to contribute towards a better understanding of how our brain controls movement, and how such control changes due to aging or disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, or depression.

Keywords: aging, motor learning, neurocognitive control, neurodegenerative disorders

Prof. Dr. Stefan Panzer

Stefan Panzer is a Full-Professor at the Saarland University (Germany). Prof. Panzer has degrees in Sport-Sciences, Educational-Sciences and Information-Technologies. He is interested in the research of motor control and learning. During the last five years he has worked on motor skill learning, relearning, transfer and movement sequence learning by physical practice or observational learning.

Keywords: sequence learning, cognition and action

Asst. Prof. Elger Abrahamse

Elger Abrahamse is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication and Cognition of Tilburg University. His primary research focus concerns the potential impact of new media use (e.g., social media use, media multitasking) on cognitive control. Besides that, he is involved in various projects in the areas of cognitive and motor control.

Keywords: Cognitive control, New media, Working memory and Sequential learning

Asst. Prof. Katja Kornysheva

Katja Kornysheva is an Assistant Professor and interim Co-Director of the Centre for Human Brain (CHBH) at the University of Birmingham, UK. Dr Kornysheva studies the physiological and informational processes underlying action planning and execution, sequencing and timing, as well as disorders of the latter. To address these goals her lab uses novel sequence learning paradigms in combination with brain, muscular and behavioural recordings (fMRI, MEG/EEG, EMG, dynamics, kinematics, motor timing) and neural pattern analyses.

Dr. Pablo Maceira

Pablo Maceira is a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Prof. Friedhelm Hummel at the EPFL in Switzerland. His research focuses on the study of the neural mechanisms underlying motor skill acquisition, as well as on the potential of using non-invasive brain stimulation to restore and enhance these mechanisms.

Keywords: Motor learning, motor skill acquisition, healthy aging, non-invasive brain stimulation, modeling and machine learning

Prof. Dr. Klaus Blischke

Klaus Blischke is a retired apl-Professor at the Institute of Sports Science, Saarland University, Germany. Originally active in the development of multi-modal teaching aids for physical education, he then conducted research on video-assisted feedback training and observational learning relevant to recreational and elite sports. More recently, his research centered on movement automatization, and on sleep-related motor offline learning.

Keywords: motor learning, skill acquisition; movement automatization; motor memory consolidation

Prof. Dr. med. Friedhelm Hummel

Friedhelm Hummel is a systems neuroscientist and trained neurologist, with more than 15 years of experience in clinical neurology, last as the Vice-Director of the Department of Neurology and Head of BINS laboratory, University Medical Center Hamburg.

Since September 2016, he is appointed Full-Professor at the ETH Lausanne (EPFL), Director of the Defitech Chair for Clinical Neuroengineering and Adjunct Professor at the University Medical Hospital Geneva.

His scientific interests are in the understanding of motor behavior and learning in healthy aging and after a stroke using multimodal systems neuroscience methods and neuro-technologies for the development of innovative interventional strategies to enhance behavior and recovery by means of non-invasive brain stimulation techniques and the combination of neuro-technologies.

Prof. Raphael Schween

My current research centers on quantitative modelling of motor learning from a Bayesian brain perspective, which I pursue in Dominik Endres’ Theoretical Cognitive Science Lab in Marburg. Before that, I studied to become a PE teacher and completed a PhD focusing on behavioral and neurophysiological experiments in Freiburg and Giessen.

Assoc. Prof. Arnaud Boutin

Dr Boutin is associate professor in the department of Kinesiology at the University Paris-Saclay. Through the use of several behavioural paradigms and multimodal neuroimaging techniques (MRI, EEG, EMG), his research work mainly focuses on the learning and sleep-related consolidation of motor skills.

Keywords: memory consolidation, motor sequence learning, action observation, motor imagery, consciousness, contextual interference

Daphne Titsing (MSc)

Daphne Titsing is a master's student at the University of Twente, Department of Cognitive, Data & Education. She is currently finishing her master's thesis on discovering the beta activity over the primary motor cortex in Motor Sequence Learning using EEG measurements.

Alexey Zabolotniy (BSc)

Alexey Zabolotniy is a master's student at the Higher School of Economics, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. He is currently finishing his master's thesis, but has work on using MEG to understand the prediction of finger movements in a motor sequence learning task.