Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science

The main research goals of the Brain Behavior Lab are to better understand the factors that influence motor skill learning.  Motor skill factors include the type and amount of skill repetition involved, the type of skills to be learned, the type of instructions provided, issues related to aging, damage to the brain, and sleep. Researchers are particularly interested in understanding how individuals with brain damage, such as stroke, recover motor function and the underlying mechanisms that promote this recovery. We have recently demonstrated that individuals suffering from chronic stroke benefit from sleep to promote motor skill learning whereas older, healthy adults do not. The Brain Behavior Lab is also working to understand which sleep parameters are associated with overnight skill enhancement using EEG and also how brain activity can change due to overnight skill enhancement using fMRI in individuals following stroke. 

The Lab Team
Lab Director
	Catherine F. Siengsukon, PT, PhD Research Assistant Professor
PhD Student	Lezi E
Collaborators	Lara Boyd Diane Filion Joan McDowd Suzanne Stevens

Current Projects

• Assessing the role of sleep and instruction in motor skill learning in young, healthy adults
  
  
• Examining the role of sleep parameters and cognition in motor skill learning in individuals following stroke
  
  
• Recent presentations (poster PDFs are attached)
  The role of sleep and knowledge in motor skill learning. Research poster platform at APTA's Combined Sections Meeting, Boston MA, 2007
  
  
• Sleep enhances motor skill learning and memory consolidation in individuals post-stroke. Research poster presentation at APTA's Combined Sections Meeting, Nashville TN, 2008
  
  
• Sleep enhances off-line spatial and temporal motor learning after stroke. Research poster presentation at Society for Neuroscience annual conference, Washington DC, 2008

Lab Equipment
The Brain Behavior Laboratory houses a state of the art computing system designed for the analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging data as well as multiple workstations for the collection and processing of behavioral data.