Comparison of cortical mapping rehabilitation procedures for the measurement of motor plasticity in the human brain

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The neurons in our brain have the ability to modify their connections, a phenomenon termed brain plasticity that allows learning of new abilities, adaptation to different environments and, to some extent, recovery following injury. The emergence of new neuroimaging and neurostimulation techniques has played a pivotal role in the progress of our knowledge of brain plasticity. One particular technique, called transcranial magnetic stimulation, consist of stimulating the areas of the brain involved in movement control and recording the contractions of the muscles that are artificially evoked by those stimulations. This allows us to make a "map" of how a given muscle is represented in the brain, and then to study how this map changes following different events. Assessing the scope of these changes and understanding their behavioural relevance remains, however, an important challenge. One example of the rudimentary nature of current approaches to measuring plasticity is that very different events, such immobilization and motor training, often appear to result in similar changes in the maps, despite obvious differences in their effects on motor performance. Currently, therefore, we cannot imply a simple relationship between changes observed in the brain and their effect on motor capacities. The goal of my research program is to understand how plasticity in areas of the brain that control movement affects motor capacities, and to identify the optimal way to measure this plasticity. As brain plasticity can have both positive and negative effects on motor behaviour, it is crucial to gain a better understanding of this phenomenon and to refine its measurement, as this knowledge will allow brain plasticity to be predictably modulated in the future.