About the headliner speaker: Dr Charlotte Stagg is the head of the Physiological Neuroimaging Group. Her primary research interest is to understand how the brain adapts to new challenges. She focuses on physiological processes underlying the learning of new motor skills and the recovery of motor function after stroke. Her approach includes advanced MR approaches, MEG, non-invasive brain stimulation and pharmacological agents.

Title of headliner talk: “Oscillations and Inhibition: towards an understanding of the neurophysiology of motor learning”

Abstract: How we learn new motor skills, such as learning to play the piano or play tennis, is a question of fundamental importance to everyday life. It also has direct relevance to how we might re-learn to move our hands after a brain injury such as a stroke. However, the neuroplastic mechanisms supporting learning occur across multiple spatial and temporal scales; from the synapse to the network and from effects lasting seconds to those lasting months or even years, making understanding these processes complex. Here, I will discuss recent studies from my group studying the physiological basis of motor plasticity in vivo, in particular how changes across a wide range of spatial scales may interact to support functional improvements. To this end we have combined advanced neuroimaging, including MR Imaging, MR Spectroscopy and MEG, with non-invasive brain stimulation in humans. Taken together, these studies provide convergent evidence that changes in local and network-level inhibitory processing is a key component of motor learning. I will discuss how we can use the information gained to optimise non-invasive brain stimulation approaches with the ultimate aim of enhancing functional improvements post-stroke