TITLE
Investigating auditory-motor coupling in persons with cerebellar impairments during static and dynamic tasks. 

ABSTRACT
Cerebellar ataxia, characterised by incoordination of movement, is a disabling impairment. Effective rehabilitation approaches targeting walking in patients with cerebellar ataxia are needed. To this end, my granted FWO mandate operated under the hypothesis that training needs to target cerebro-cerebellar predictive mechanisms. Such training can be embedded in auditory-motor coupling tasks during walking to music and metronomes. The project thus investigated the underlying perceptual and motor components of auditory motor coupling using behavioural and neurophysiological (EEG) measurements in patients with cerebellar impairments. The overall project included two work-packages: a finger-tapping and listening paradigm and a walking paradigm. The experimental paradigms in both WPs were designed to include auditory stimuli at different tempi and apply manipulations in phase and period to study detection and correction of error by the means of measuring synchronisation accuracy and precision. Within this talk, I will first present mechanistic insights learnt from the results of the finger-tapping and listening paradigms on the underlying processes of auditory-motor coupling and cerebellar involvement in these processes. I will then present results from the walking paradigms in the context of clinical implications on using such paradigms for training gait dynamics in persons with cerebellar impairments.   

ZOOM LINK
https://aarhusuniversity.zoom.us/j/63078612148

SPEAKER
Lousin Moumdjian.
Postdoctoral FWO research fellow.  
Faculty of Rehabilitation Sciences, Rehabilitation Research Center (REVAL), Hasselt University, Belgium.
Faculty of Art and Philosophy, Institute of psychoacoustics and electronic music (IPEM), Ghent University, Belgium.