Faculty of Science and Technology

Planning and executing movements in a context-dependent fashion is a fundamental aspect of everyday life. Disturbances of these functions, in turn, cause severe disability in patients with neuropsychiatric disorders. The major goal of our work is to investigate the structure and dynamics of human brain networks supporting basic motor control, implicit learning and contextual influences using functional imaging and connectivity analysis.

In his talk Professor Eickhoff will present an overview of the results of recent fMRI and modelling studies on basic motor control, implicit learning as well as action observation and imitation. Functional modules of the action network will be delineated using fMRI studies as well asmeta-analyses of previous imaging experiments and integrated with histological data in order to assess structure-function relationships.

Further, Professor Eickhoff will demonstrate studies analyzing contextual influences on movement preparation and execution. Here effective connectivity models reveal the dynamic interaction between the involved regions and demonstrate the interaction between stimulus-driven bottom-up processes and top-down modulated effects pertaining to contextual influences.

Finally, behavioural data from patients suffering from stroke, amputation or schizophrenia indicate specific impairments of psychomotor function and contextual manipulations in these disorders. It will be shown, how behavioural and kinematic data, activation studies and network modelling can be integrated to gain a deeper insight into function and dysfunction of human action control.