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Research Scientist from the Cognitive Neuroscience Group at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, visits MIB for two months.
13.12.2018 |
Some words from Ignasi:
“Absolutely all properties of external manifestations of the brain activity described as animation, passion, mockery, sorry, joy, etc. are the mere results of a greater of lesser contraction of muscles, which as everyone knows, is a purely mechanical act”, Ivan Sechenov —- Reflexes of the Brain (1863).
Either by hand-writing, speaking or piano playing, movement is the only way to convey our thoughts to others, and to interact with the environment. Indeed, most tasks we perform on a daily basis require rapid decisions between movements and proper selection of movement parameters, often in situations where precise information about how to move is absent. How fast should we reach for our daily coffee mug, at what speed should we walk to work?
My focus of interest is rooted in the principles used by the brain to solve these situations, and is concerned with attaining a general theoretical framework relating brain-bodily states, movement, and decisions between actions. To that end I combine behavioural (psychophysics, oculometry), stimulation (TMS) and imaging (EEG) techniques in specific paradigms with healthy human participants and Parkinson’s patients. Their tasks are aimed at gaining access to patterns of brain activity and connectivity that help us defining a normative joint model of brain connectivity and motor control. This is also supported by powerful computational models of the brain, aimed at quantifying the contribution of motor symptoms to the production of movement.