Developmental Coordination Disorder is a very frequent neurodevelopmental condition marked by impaired motor skills in the absence of any neurological injury given a child’s chronological age and previous opportunities for skill acquisition. Despite its considerable impact on academic and life achievements, DCD core deficits are still debated.

My research investigates how children and adults with DCD use sensory feedback to correct movements, how they program movements with their hands or tools, and how plastic are their body representations. 

In collaboration with Judith Gentle (University of Surrey, UK), I am also interested in how DCD affects education and mental health.

Key papers:

• Stay tuned for my papers on motor adaptation in children and adults with and without DCD.

• Gentle J, Ivanova M, Martel M, Glover S, Hosein A (2024). A Qualitative Investigation into the Experiences of Students with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD/Dyspraxia) in Higher Education, In: European journal of investigation in health, psychology and education. 14(12)pp. 3099-3122 Mdpi. https://doi.org/10.3390/ejihpe14120203. (pdf)

• Martel M, Finos L, Bahmad S, Koun E, Salemme R, Sonié S, Fourneret P, Schmitz C & Roy AC (2023). Motor deficits in autism differ from that of developmental coordination disorder. Autism, 13623613231171980. https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613231171980. (pdf)

• Martel M, Boulenger V, Koun E, Finos L, Farnè A & Roy AC (2022). Body schema plasticity is altered in Developmental Coordination Disorder. Neuropsychologia, 166, 108136. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.108136. (pdf) 

Motor imagery consists in imagining an action without any movements. Current theories consider a functional equivalence between an imagined movement and its imagined counterpart: in most of the situations, it takes the same amount of time to perform both, and activates very similar neural circuits. Motor imagery can also predict the sensory consequences of a movement, even without sensory feedback.

I have recently began to explore a new model, the Motor-Cognitive Model of motor imagery, established by Scott Glover. This model accounts for discrepancies between imagined and overt actions, by attributing a role to executive functions. Complex movements, or movements requiring online corrections would require more executive resources to be monitored during motor imagery, leading to discrepancies in timings reported in the literature, as well as activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. 

Key papers:

• Martel M & Glover S (2025). Online versus cognitive control: A dividing line between physical action and motor imagery. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. 51(10), 1407–1422. https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0001356. (pdf)

• Martel M* & Glover S (2023). TMS over dorsolateral prefrontal cortex affects the timing of motor imagery but not overt action: Further support for the motor-cognitive model. Behavioural Brain Research, 437, 114125. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2022.114125. (pdf)

• Baccarini M*, Martel M*, Cardinali L*, Sillan O, Farnè A# & Roy AC# (2014). Tool use imagery triggers tool incorporation in the body schema. Front. Psychol. 5:492. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00492 (*#Equal contribution).

Motor control relies on the ability to plan a movement to reach a certain goal, predict the expected consequences and compare them with the sensory and motor feedback from this movement. It thus requires to be able to integrate multisensory information originating from the body but also the environment through proprioception and vision.

My research focuses on how this ability develops during childhood and how it affects the development of bimanual and unimanual movement skills. I am also particularly interested in adolescence, a period characterized by many changes in the brain, but also in the body itself: in a very short amount of time, adolescents grow up very fast, which has been linked to a certain clumsiness. My research aims at investigating quantitatively motor control during childhood and adolescence, with the hypothesis that body representations are not aways perfectly up to date with the true dimensions of the body. As the body changes, proprioceptive input can be less trustworthy, leading adolescents to favor their vision. My work particularly focuses on body representation plasticity and tactile processing, and how this is related to motor control. 

Key papers:

• Stay tuned for my paper on tactile processing and motor control in adolescence.

• Martel M, Óssandon JP & Heed T. Protracted development of visual-proprioceptive integration for hand motor control. bioRxiv 601435. https://doi.org/10.1101/601435.

• Martel M, Finos L, Koun R, Farnè A* & Roy AC* (2021). The long developmental trajectory of body representation plasticity following tool use. Sci Rep, 11(1), 559. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-79476-8 (*Equal contribution). (pdf) 

Decades of studies have shown that tools can be used as extension of our body to act on and perceive the world around us. After using a tool for a few minutes, healthy participants perform their free-hand movements as if their arm was longer, testifying of the plasticity of their body representation for action (body schema). This phenomenon is also referred to as tool embodiment.

My research focuses on the sensory inputs required for such plasticity to occur. I am particularly interested in how visual experience can shape plasticity, investigating this phenomenon in healthy blindfolded and blind individuals.

Key papers:

• In preparation: Bahmad S*, Martel M*, Koun E, Salemme R, Finos L, Farnè A# & Roy AC#. Blindness alters arm representation plasticity following tool-use (*#Equal contribution).

• Martel M, Cardinali L, Bertonati G, Jouffrais C, Roy AC & Farnè A (2019). Somatosensory-guided tool use modifies arm representation for action. Sci Rep 9(1):5517. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-41928-1. (pdf) 

• Martel M, Cardinali L, Roy AC* & Farnè A* (2016). Tool-use: an open window into body representation and its plasticity. Cogn. Neuropsychol. 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1080/02643294.2016.1167678. (pdf)