CoActions Lab

Cognition and Actions Lab

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Emeline Pierrieau

PhD, Post-Doctoral 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.

Representative Publications

Pierrieau, E., Dussard, C., Plantey-Veux, A., Guerrini, C., Lau, B., Pillette, L., George, N., & Jeunet-Kelway, C. (2025). Changes in cortical beta power predict motor control flexibility, not vigor. Communications biology, 8(1), 1041.
Pierrieau, E., Berret, B., Lepage, J. F., & Bernier, P. M. (2023). From Motivation to Action: Action Cost Better Predicts Changes in Premovement Beta-Band Activity than Speed. The Journal of neuroscience, 43(28), 5264–5275.
Pierrieau, E., Kessouri, S., Lepage, J. F., & Bernier, P. M. (2022). Theta but not beta activity is modulated by freedom of choice during action selection. Scientific reports, 12(1), 9115.
Pierrieau, E., Lepage, J. F., & Bernier, P. M. (2021). Action Costs Rapidly and Automatically Interfere with Reward-Based Decision-Making in a Reaching Task. eNeuro, 8(4), ENEURO.0247-21.2021.

> Curriculum vitae

Conference Presentations

Pierrieau E., Dussard, C., Plantey—Veux, A., Guerrini, C., Pillette, L., George, N., & Jeunet-Kelway, C. Neurofeedback for improving motor performance: Downregulation of EEG beta-band activity can increase motor control flexibility. 5th International Neuroergonomics Conference, 8-12 July 2024, Bordeaux, France.
Pierrieau, E., Pillette, L., Dussard, C., George, N., & Jeunet-Kelway, C. A bidirectional neurofeedback study to uncover the relationship between beta power and movement. 9th BCI Conference, 9-12 September 2024, Graz, Austria.
Pierrieau, E., Berret, B., Lepage, J.-F., & Bernier, P.-M. From motivation to action: action utility better predicts changes in pre-movement beta-band activity than movement speed. SfN Neuroscience, 12-16 November 2022, San Diego, USA.
Pierrieau, E., Lepage, J.-F., & Bernier P.-M. Modulations of motor beta-band activity are better explained by changes in action utility rather than movement speed. SCAPPS Conference, 13-15 October 2022, Montreal, Canada.