IfLS & Health Sciences Seminar Event

- Time:
- 12:00 - 14:00
- Date:
- 20 March 2015
- Venue:
- Room 1003 Nightingale Building (67)
For more information regarding this event, please email Prof Jane Burridge at J.H.Burridge@soton.ac.uk .
Event details
Reaching, Robots, and Rehabilitation; Brain Activity and the Effects of Practice
Title: Reaching, Robots, and Rehabilitation; Brain Activity and the Effects of Practice
Abstract: Our research has demonstrated that reaching practice alters the cortical representation of movement accessible by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). TMS evokes reach-like movements that can be measured with a rehabilitation robot. These movements tend to cluster within a quadrant of space and are stable. But practice of movements in the opposite quadrant results in changes in TMS-evoked movements that last for several minutes. When TMS is combined with reaching practice, there are additionally changes in the strength of TMS-evoked muscle activation. These changes have a strong dependence on the time of stimulation. The implication for rehabilitation practice is that priming activity may need to occur before movement has started.
Target audience: Rehabilitation, Neuroscience, Engineering / Health Technologies, Clinicians, Therapists and Neurologists
Lecture starts at 12.00, followed by a buffet lunch at 13.00.
Registration for this event is now closed.
Speaker information
Dr George F. Wittenberg ,University of Maryland,Dr George F. Wittenberg is a Staff Physician in the GRECC, Deputy Director of the VA Maryland Exercise and Robotics Center of Excellence, and Associate Professor in the Department of Neurology and Department of Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Science at the University of Maryland. He received training in Engineering, Medicine, Neurology and Neurobiology at Harvard, UC San Diego, Washington U., St. Louis, and the US National Institutes of Health. His research interests presently lie in using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and functional imaging to understand motor cortical reorganization following stroke and in designing and testing new methods for neurorehabilitation.