A Double-Coil TMS Method to Assess Corticospinal Excitability Changes at a Near-Simultaneous Time in the Two Hands during Movement Preparation

Emmanuelle is a MD (Neurology Assistant Doctor) who, during her medicine studies at the Université catholique de Louvain, joined the CoActions lab as a research student (2012 - 2016). Over that time, she worked on preparatory motor inhibition, mainly in alcohol-dependent patients, but also helped to develop a new double-coil TMS method. She started her PhD thesis in October 2016. Her goal was to investigate the role of the basal ganglia in motor inhibition, working with medically treated and DBS (Deep Brain Stimulation) treated Parkinson’s patients.

Caroline completed a PhD in Psychological Sciences at the University of Liege as well as a postdoctoral fellowship at the department of Addiction Neuroscience of the University-Purdue Indianapolis University, where her research focused on the developmental and neurobiological bases of alcohol abuse and dependence. Caroline joined the CoActions lab in July 2014 and, since then, has been mainly investigating the contribution of deficient motor inhibitory mechanisms in addiction, and especially in alcohol-dependence.

Research broadly explores a range of questions pertaining to the cognitive neuroscience of human behavior. Conduct experiments to explore the interaction between cognition and action in neurologically healthy and impaired individuals. Use a variety of techniques to characterize the functional role of different parts of the motor pathways, including transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and electroencephalography (EEG). Recent research investigates the role of the locus coeruleus in various aspects of action control, including reaching movement control, decision making, and behavioral vigor, using transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS) to causally probe this neuromodulatory system. More →