Current Members
Principal Investigator
Julie DUQUE
Full Professor, Head of the CoActions Lab
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 →](/blog/julie-duque-research/)
Postdoctoral Researchers
Ronan DENYER
Postdoctoral Researcher
Ronan Denyer recently completed his PhD in Neuroscience at The University of British Columbia, Canada, under the supervision of Dr. Lara Boyd. His PhD thesis research combined brain stimulation, neuroimaging, and behavioural tasks to investigate the role of the dorsal premotor cortex in the control of simple and complex bimanual movements. As a postdoctoral fellow in the CoActions Lab, Ronan will use transcranial magnetic stimulation in tandem with vagus nerve stimulation to better understand the role of the locus coeruleus in movement preparation.
Emeline PIERRIEAU
Postdoctoral Researcher
Emeline Pierrieau completed her PhD at the University of Sherbrooke in Canada, under the supervision of Dr. Pierre-Michel Bernier and Dr. Jean-François Lepage. Her doctoral research focused on how movement effort influences action selection and motor control, as well as on brain activity measured using EEG. After that, she did a three-year postdoctoral stay at the University of Bordeaux in France, where she worked with Dr. Camille Jeunet-Kelway and Dr. Nathalie George on the relationship between sensorimotor beta activity and motor control for non-invasive brain-computer interface applications in Parkinson’s disease. As a postdoctoral fellow in the CoActions Lab, her research will integrate EEG, EMG, and pupillometry to examine how cognitive and motor effort differentially influence action selection.
PhD Students
Clara BRACONNIER
PhD Student
Clara graduated in 2022 from a master degree in biomedical engineering. She then worked in a pharmaceutical industry but, after few months, she decided to switch to fundamental research and joined the CoActions lab in June 2023 to begin a PhD. She will focus on the speed-accuracy trade off during reaching movement as well as on the role of arousal in this trade off. To do so, she will use reward, transcutaneous Vagus Nerve Stimulation (tVNS) and electroencephalography (EEG).
Fostine CHAISE
PhD Student
Fostine completed her Master in Behavioral Neuroscience at Université Caen Normandie, where she focused on the atypical visual processing of people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) as an explanation of their difficulty to communicate and interact with others. She joined the CoActions Lab in early 2023 to begin a PhD. Her goal is to investigate the role of motor structures in impulsive decision making in alcohol-dependent individuals.
Luca CREITZ
PhD Student
Luca joined the CoAction Lab (UCLouvain) in June 2026 as a PhD researcher. His research explores how neuromodulation, in particular taVNS, influences motor learning and adaptation. He holds a Bachelor's in Biomedical Sciences (minor in Psychology) and a Master's in Human Movement Sciences from Maastricht University. Outside the lab, Luca is an avid sport climber and trail runner with a passion for the outdoors.
Thibault FUMERY
PhD Student
Thibault is an MD currently specializing in neurology at UCLouvain since 2020. After 2 years of clinical training, he joined the coactions lab on October 1st 2022 to start a PhD. He intends to focus on how reward, which induces “WANTING”, interacts with cognitive control, which allows “CAUTION”, to shape urgency during decision making; using neurophysiological tools and MRI (tractography). He will work with healthy subjects and patients with Parkinson's disease to better understand this interaction.
Anaëlle SOILLE HAMBYE
PhD Student
Anaëlle joined the lab during her master’s thesis, where she investigated the neural sources of urgency in decision-making among healthy adolescents. Since October 2025, she’s pursuing her PhD at the CoActions Lab, where she aims to investigate the interplay between impulsivity, urgency, and the gut microbiota. Her project is conducted in co-supervision with Sophie Leclercq from the Nutritional Psychiatry Lab.
Clara MASSON
PhD Student
Clara Masson is a Master’s student in Neuroscience at UCLouvain who joined the CoActions Lab for her thesis project in 2025. Her current research explores the neural basis of urgency during decision-making in typically developing adolescents, combining behavioral testing with Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI).
Mantosh PATNAIK
PhD Student
Mantosh did his Masters in Neuroscience from the National Brain Research Centre, India. He further did a Research Assistantship with Prof. Nivethida Thirugnanasambandam, where he worked on a project analyzing structural and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging data from a large set of Parkinson's Disease patients curated from the Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative database in the hopes of identifying biomarkers that could be used in the early stages of the disease to predict the onset of dyskinesias later in life. He then joined the CoActions lab in December 2022 for his PhD.
Thomas VANVOORDEN
PhD Student
Thomas is a PhD student with a Master’s degree in Biomedical Sciences (Neuroscience option) from UCLouvain. He joined the CoActions Lab for his Master’s thesis in early 2024. His thesis aimed to investigate the causal role of the locus coeruleus norepinephrine system in regulating speed and accuracy during decision-making. In October 2025, he began his PhD, which continues the work initiated during his Master’s thesis. His current project involves behavioral testing, transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS), pupillometry, electroencephalography (EEG), and the use of the Kinarm robotic system.
Undergraduate Students
Lucien DELFORGE
Undergraduate Student
Lucien is a medical student who joined the student research program this year. Prior to this, he completed a Master's degree in Physitherapy and Rehabilitation at UCLouvain, during which he conducted his Master's thesis in the lab in 2025. His thesis aimed to comprehend the causal role of the Locus Coeruleus Norepinephrine Systeme (LC-NE) on perceptual decision making, using behavioral testing combined with transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation.
Alan DE GEEST
Undergraduate Student
Alan joined the CoActions Lab in early October 2025 to begin his Master’s thesis, which he will complete over the next two years. He is studying Kinesiology with a focus on athlete training and neuroscience at UCLouvain. His current research investigates transcranial vagus nerve stimulation to better understand the role of the locus coeruleus in movement preparation.
Léa DE MAERE
Undergraduate Student
Léa is a Master’s student in Biomedical Sciences (Neurosciences option) at UCLouvain, undertaking her one-year Master’s thesis at the CoActions lab. Her research explores how transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation and reward affect the co-regulation of decision-making and movement vigor.
Alice SCHULLER
Undergraduate Student
Alice Schuller is a Master’s student in Biomedical Sciences, specializing in Neurosciences at UCLouvain. For her one-year Master’s thesis at the CoActions lab, she is investigating the role of the locus coerulus in decision-making using transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation.
Alumni
Charles-Étienne Benoit
Associate Professor
Charles-Étienne was a PhD student in the CoActions Lab where he worked on investigative and rhythmical aspects of motor learning and memory. Since October 2018, he is employed as an Associate Professor at the University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw, Poland, where he opened his own lab focusing on better identifying the rhythmical determinants of memory.
Thomas CARSTEN
Post-Doctoral Researcher
Thomas completed his PhD in Psychology in 2019 at the University of Gent. As part of his doctoral dissertation, he investigated the motivational properties of rewards and losses on response facilitation. Drawing from his experience with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) and Electroencephalography (EEG), he joined the CoActions Lab in 2019. His goal was to investigate the integration of sensory evidence into motor plans.
Manon CHAUVAUX
Master Student
Manon was a master’s student at the université catholique de Louvain in neuroscience option. She joined the CoActions lab for her master thesis in early 2023. Her Master’s thesis project aimed at investigating the underlying neural basis of interlimb transfer of a newly learned skilled movement in young healthy subjects. This project involved behavioral testing, electroencephalography (EEG) recording and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).
Zainab CHOUMANE
Master Student
Zainab was a Master’s student in Biomedical Sciences, specializing in Neurosciences at UCLouvain. For her one-year Master’s thesis at the CoActions lab, she was investigating the neural mechanisms underlying decision urgency in impulsive individuals through a combination of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) and behavioral testing, within the field of behavioral neuroscience.
Fanny FIEVEZ
PhD Student
Fanny is a physiotherapist who specializes in Neurological disorders in adults. She joined the CoActions lab during her studies at the Université catholique de Louvain (2014). Her master thesis investigated the impact of the necessity to make a choice on the motor output. She then joined the CoAction Lab in October 2018 to start a PhD. Her goal was to better understand the functional role of motor inhibition, focusing on interactions between cognitive and motor processes.
Monika GERGELYFI
Post-Doctoral Researcher
Jeremy GILLARD
Computer Scientist
Jeremy joined the CoActions Lab team in October 2019 as a student in order to regularly update the previous lab's website with the latest news, new research topics and references to the lab's latest research results. Subsequently, he began working more closely with one of the laboratory's members, Gérard Derosière, in order to develop an R package corresponding precisely to the needs of displaying results in relation to motor representations.
Julien GRANDJEAN
PhD Student
Julien was a PhD student, having previously graduated in the field of motor sciences (2015). He first joined the CoActions lab in 2013 as a research student. During his master studies, he enhanced his research skills at KU Leuven working under the supervision of Pr. Swinnen thanks to an Erasmus grant. Julien was working on two main projects including (1) the development of a double-coil TMS method allowing to obtain motor-evoked potentials in both hands simultaneously and the investigation of preparatory inhibition in addiction.
Simon VAN HEMELRIJCK
Post-Doctoral Researcher
Pierre-Alexandre KLEIN
Post-Doctoral Researcher
Vincent MOENS
MD, PhD in Computational and Cognitive Neuroscience
Completed doctoral research in computational and cognitive neuroscience investigating decision-making and cognitive processes. Currently works as machine learning scientist at AIG Investments AI in London.
Etienne OLIVIER
Professor (Emeritus)
Etienne passed away on March 9th, 2016. He will be remembered as a brilliant scientist, a respected professor and a mentor to many students. His sudden departure leaves us all in grief.
Charlotte PETITJEAN
Post-Doctoral Researcher
Caroline QUOILIN
PhD, Post-Doctoral Researcher
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.
Oleg SOLOPCHUK
MD, PhD Student
Investigates the computational mechanisms of mental effort and cognitive fatigue using machine learning, neuroimaging, and neuromodulation techniques. Previously focused on sequence learning and chunking mechanisms in motor control.
Shiyong SU
PhD, Post-Doctoral Researcher
Shiyong Su completed her Master and Ph.D. (2015-2022) in Biomechanical Engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China (with Prof. Xiangyang Zhu), where she focused on the stimulation encoding and sensory evaluation for the sensory reconstruction of bidirectional neural prostheses, including the integrated implementation of closed-loop sensory feedback combining myoelectrical control and electrotactile stimulation, and the functional mechanism underlying sensory feedback based on electrophysiological evaluation. She was a visiting doctoral fellow at the Institute of Neuroscience in UCLouvain (with Prof. André Mouraux) where she developed a project exploring how tactile feedback could be integrated with auditory and visual feedback in next-generation multisensory human-computer interfaces. After this period, she began as a post-doctoral researcher at the CoActions Lab, where she was investigating the effect of taVNS on decision-making.
Emmanuelle WILHELM
MD, PhD Student
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.
Goldy YADAV
Post-Doctoral Researcher
Goldy completed her PhD (2015-2020) in Cognitive Science at the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar (with Prof. Pratik Mutha), where she investigated the underlying mechanisms mediating learning, retention and generalization of newly learned skilled movements, and the interactions between spatial working memory and motor skill memory. She was a Fulbright-Nehru visiting doctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health (with Dr. Leonardo Cohen) where she developed projects exploring the role of sensorimotor neural oscillatory activity on motor output. After this period, she began as a post-doctoral researcher at the CoActions Lab, where she was investigating the role of neural oscillations in motor learning and adaptation.