The ability to organise one's body for action without having to think about it is taken for granted, whether it is tying your shoelaces, typing an email on a computer keyboard, or performing a new dance routine. How does the brain prepare the order and timing of movements in a sequence for fluent and accurate performance? Motor planning has been long recognised as a key element of skilled motor control (O’Shea and Shenoy, 2016) and its dysfunction has been linked to poorly understood developmental coordination disorders (Bhoyroo et al., 2018), however the covert organisation of movements prior to execution has remained elusive. While the planning of single movements in the primate brain has been well characterised over the last two decades, understanding how sequences of movement are prepared and controlled remains highly debated, despite a recent surge in interest in this field. Specifically, it unclear whether planning involves a process where each item in the sequence is retrieved and ordered in parallel, or alternatively, whether planning involves rehearsing or replaying the upcoming items serially (Goudar and Buonomano, 2018; Zeid and Bullock, 2019). Recently we have developed tools to decode the covert content related to sequence planning from behaviour and non-invasively recorded brain patterns (MEG, EEG and fMRI) not detectable at the periphery and scrutinise its relation to subsequent performance (Kornysheva et al., 2019; Kornysheva and Diedrichsen, 2014; Mantziara et al., 2021a, 2021b; Yewbrey et al., 2022). Despite these promising advances, a direct link to the underlying regional neural dynamics that give rise to action organisation remains unknown.
The current PhD project will aim to close this gap by employing state-of-the-art neuroimaging technology (optically pumped magnetometers; OPM-MEG) which allows us to record the neural dynamics in humans from cortical and subcortical regions with a higher than previously signal-to-noise ratio, and combine it with non-invasive transcranial brain stimulation (Albouy et al., 2017). OPM-MEG. This approach will help us to reveal 1) what is represented in recorded brain activity in the hundreds of milliseconds prior to movement onset, 2) how that information is represented in those regions of interest by neural oscillations (Higgins et al., 2022; Jensen et al., 2021) and 3) whether inhibiting or boosting neural oscillations of interest will improve action planning and coordination. The results will have implications for the fundamental understanding of motor control and the relationship between the frequency spectra of the neural signal and informational processing in the human brain. Further, it will have relevance to clinical rehabilitation of poorly understood developmental and acquired action coordination disorders.
Techniques that will be undertaken during the project:
- Programming using Matlab/Python
- Experimental paradigm development; Behavioural tasks: sequence learning (finger force recordings and hand-writing/drawing trajectories) tasks
- Neuroimaging: state-of-the-art MEG/OPM-MEG recordings
- Electromyography (EMG)
- Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) and/or transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS)
Important Note:
Before submitting an application to the University of Birmingham interested candidates are encouraged to send the following documents to Dr Katja Kornysheva ([Email Address Removed]) with the subject "MIBTP studentship". Applicants with the most competitive applications will be supported to submit an application to the University of Birmingham.
1- CV
2- Personal Statement
3- Transcript of grades
4- Reference letter
For more information please visit:
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/mibtp/pgstudy/phd_opportunities/
https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/activity/mibtp/index.aspx