“Perturbation-imaging Approaches to Study Functional Contributions of Cortical Activity to Human Movement”

The ability to learn and produce skilled movements is required for humans to successfully engage with each other and their environment. A principal role of the brain is to guide current, and plan future, movements based on past actions and potential rewards. In this talk, I will describe ongoing work in our lab employing multiple approaches to investigate the functional contributions of brain activity to normal and abnormal human movement. I will discuss how transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a form of non-invasive brain stimulation, can be used both characterize and modulate cortical activity and connectivity during movement. I will also describe our recent findings showing abnormal TMS-evoked cortical reactivity post-stroke that is related to persistent paretic arm impairment. Lastly, I will discuss preliminary work applying alternative perturbation paradigms to study brain-behavior relationships in health and disease.