Blog | CoActions Lab

16th Belgian Society for Neuroscience Meeting - October 2025

Mon, 20 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This Monday, October 20th, in Leuven, the 16th Annual Meeting of the Belgian Society for Neuroscience took place, with Prof. Julie Duqué as President of the event. Celebrating its 30th anniversary, this event was a great opportunity for the neuroscience community in Belgium to share ideas, hypotheses, and research findings.

Highlights

Throughout the day, participants had the chance to attend inspiring talks by:

Prof. Dr. Friedhelm Hummel - “Beyond the Surface: Noninvasive Deep-Brain Stimulation to Boost Cognition in Health and Neurological Disorders”
Prof. Dr. Karin Amunts - “Charting the Human Brain”
Prof. Dr. Senne Braem - “Mental Processes Underlying Flexible, Goal-Directed Behavior”

CoActions Lab Participation

It was also a great occasion for several members of the CoActions Lab to present their work:

Clara Braconnier
Clara Masson
Mantosh Patnaik
Ronan Denyer
Zainab Choumane

The event provided an excellent platform for networking and sharing the latest advances in neuroscience research.

Ronan Denyer Awarded 3-Year FNRS Fellowship - July 2024

Thu, 25 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Congratulations to Ronan Denyer who was awarded a 3-year postdoctoral fellowship from the Belgian Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (FRS)!

Research Project

Ronan’s project is concerned with identifying neural sources of preparatory inhibition. The research will use transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in combination with Instructed Delay Choice Reaction Time Tasks in humans.

Background

Recent research has led to the discovery of preparation-related suppression of corticospinal tract excitability, known as “preparatory suppression”. Despite these advances, motor evoked potentials (MEPs) produced by single pulse TMS over primary motor cortex (M1) have limited ability to test competing perspectives on the functional role of preparatory suppression.

Research Plan

Ronan has proposed a comprehensive set of experiments organized in 3 work packages (WP) using:

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)
Electroencephalography (EEG)
Transcutaneous Vagus Nerve Stimulation (tVNS)

These tools will help improve understanding of the neural source of preparatory suppression and aid future efforts to parse out the function(s) of the effect in behavior for both healthy and clinical populations.

Impact

This fellowship represents a significant recognition of Ronan’s contributions to neuroscience and his innovative approach to understanding the neural mechanisms of motor control and inhibition.

Professor Jonathan Tsay's Invited Talk on Sensorimotor Learning - June 2024

Tue, 04 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Professor Jonathan Tsay was invited to give a talk on June 4th at 12:30pm, which was held at Auditoire Maisin, Louvain-en-Woluwe. He is a distinguished young scientist in the field of motor control.

About Prof. Tsay

After completing his PhD at UC Berkeley under Rich Ivry, he pursued a postdoctoral fellowship at Cambridge with Tamar Makin. He is now establishing his own lab at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Presentation

His presentation was titled “Behavioral, Neuropsychological, and Computational Perspectives on Sensorimotor Learning”, exploring the behavioral, neuropsychological, and computational dimensions of sensorimotor learning, with a special focus on his innovative work developing online experimental environments.

Following the talks, we enjoyed a delightful dinner with Prof. Tsay at a beautiful venue overlooking the scenic views of Brussels. The dinner provided an excellent opportunity for lively discussions and networking in a relaxed setting.

CoActions Lab PhD Students Present at IoNS Young Researchers' Day - April 2024

Tue, 30 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Mantosh and Clara from the CoActions Lab made a notable impact with their presentations at the IoNS Young Researchers’ Day, held at the Brussels Woluwe campus of UCLouvain on April 30th, 2024.

Event Overview

The event brought together promising young postdocs and PhD students from the Institute of Neuroscience of UCLouvain to showcase their interesting research. Our PhD students delivered poster presentations on their latest work, receiving praise and recognition from peers and experts in the field.

Significance

This participation not only highlights the innovative research being conducted at CoActions Lab but also underscores our commitment to:

Fostering young talent in neuroscience
Advancing scientific knowledge through collaborative research
Supporting the development of the next generation of researchers

Congratulations to both Mantosh and Clara for their outstanding presentations!

Fanny Fievez Successfully Defends PhD Thesis - April 2024

Thu, 25 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Congratulations to Fanny Fievez, who successfully defended her PhD thesis titled “How urgency shapes motor behavior” in April 2024.

Achievement

Her achievement is a testament to years of hard work, determination, and dedication. Throughout her doctoral studies, Fanny conducted groundbreaking research on the neural mechanisms underlying how urgency influences motor behavior and decision-making processes.

Future Endeavors

We wish Dr. Fievez all the best for all her future endeavors. Her research contributions to the CoActions Lab have been invaluable, and we look forward to seeing her continued success in neuroscience research.

This milestone represents the culmination of her scientific journey and marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter in her career!

Julie DUQUE

Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000