Motor Learning Lab (MLL)
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One in four people suffer from a stroke over a lifetime (World Stroke Org). In Belgium, every year, >20.000 persons are victim of a stroke. Up to 80% of stroke survivors suffer from hemiparesis, i.e. the loss of voluntary motor control, which is particularly devastating when involving the upper limb. Indeed, hemiparesis impairs bimanual skills in daily life activities through lack of synchronization and slowness, impairments in forces and motor control.
Neurorehabilitation aims to help patients recovering but is based on fragmentary knowledge: how the injured human brain (re-)learns these (bimanual) skills remains largely unknown. A better understanding of the processes underlying recovery and motor learning is thus of paramount importance.
Our research aims are to explore
- The physiological bases of motor control and motor learning after stroke and in healthy individuals.
- How motor learning contributes to recovery after stroke.
- How to enhance motor learning and recovery after stroke through innovative methods such as robotics, neuromodulation, virtual reality, etc.
Methods:
- Robotics: quantitative behavioural analysis in healthy individuals and stroke patients, neurorehabilitation through interactive robotics & serious games. REA²PLAN® (AXINESIS / Louvain Bionics (UCLouvain)) and Dextrain Manipulandum®
- Functional MRI (fMRI): Activation fMRI, resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI), quantitative volumetric brain analysis (VLSM), Diffusion-Weighted Imaging (DWI)
- Kinematic analysis of movements. Recording and analysis of kinematic data in stroke patients (CODAmotion)