The mission of the Neuro-Behavioral Lab is to provide insight into the neural regulation of goal directed movements.  The following include some recent lines in inquiry:

 

a)       visuo-motor control of prehensile (reaching and grasping) movements in closed-land open-loop visual modalities

b)       spatial accuracy of goal-directed movements in memory dependent contexts

c)      sensorimotor transformations (visual to kinesthetic) involved in pointing to remembered targets

d)      visual and non-visual components of skill acquisition

e)      the cerebral specialization for speech and limb movement

 

These basic lines of research serve as the foundation for clinical populations research in the Neuro-Behavioral Lab:

 

1.  Apraxia

 

Apraxia is a disorder of learned, skilled purposeful movement that cannot be accounted for by weakness, sensory loss, ataxia, poor comprehension, or inattention to demand.  The goal of the Neuro-Behavioural Lab is to develop a standardized diagnostic tool for evaluating limb apraxia, and to understand the spatial-temporal elements of impaired movement control in this population.  The ultimate goal of this line of research is to develop rehabilitation protocols for the restoration of functional movement.

 

2.      Down Syndrome

 

Collaborative research with McMaster University and the Universities of British Columbia and Simon Fraser is investigating the cerebral specialization of speech and limb movement in children and adolescents with Down syndrome.  To date research in this area has uncovered an anomalous pattern of cerebral organization, potentially accounting for the verbal-motor deficits association with the Down syndrome karyotype.   The goal of this avenue of research is to develop teaching and learning strategies to improve motor skill acquisition in persons with Down syndrome.

 

3.      Concussion

 

A recent line of inquiry involves the development of a functional tool for the evaluation of sport related concussion.  In this area, we our developing quantitative measurement techniques for evaluating the perceptual-motor consequences associated with concussion.

 

 

Lab Equipment

 

OPTOTRAK 3020 and Peak Performance motion analyses equipment and software support data acquisition.

 

Recent Publications

 

Heath, M., Westwood, D., Roy, E. A., & Black, S. E. (in press).  Patterns of apraxia associated with the production of intransitive limb gestures.  Brain and Cognition.

 

Chapman, C., Heath, M., Westwood, D., & Roy, E. A. (in press). Memory for target location defined kinesthetically:  Evidence for manual asymmetries 1.  Brain and Cognition.

 

Roy, E.A., Heath, M., Westwood, D., Black, S. E., Schweitzer, T., & Dixon, M., Barbour, K., & Kalbfleisch, L. (in press).  Task demands in limb apraxia.  Brain and Cognition.

 

Westwood, D., Heath, M., & Roy, E. A. (in press).  The effect of a pictorial illusion on closed-loop and open-loop prehension.  Experimental Brain Research.

 

Westwood, D., Schweizer, T., Heath, M., Roy, E. A., Dixon, M. J., & Black, S. E. (in press).  Visual and non-visual sensory contributions to transitive gesture production.  Brain and Cognition.

 

Heath, M., & Roy, E.A. (2000).  The expression of manual asymmetries following extensive training of the non-dominant hand.  Brain and Cognition, 43, 252-257.

 

Elliott, D., Heath, M., Binsted, G., Ricker, K.L., Roy, E.A., & Chua, R. (1999).  Goal-directed aiming:  Correcting a force specification error with the right and left hand.  Journal of Motor Behavior, 31, 309-324.

 

Heath, M., & Elliott, D. (1999).  Cerebral specialization for speech production in persons with Down syndrome.  Brain and Language, 69, 193-211.

 

Heath, M., Elliott, D., & Roy, E.A. (1999).  Performance of the manual and oral-motor systems using the dual-task paradigm.  Brain and Cognition, 40, 147-150.

 

Heath, M., Hodges, N.J., Chua, R., Elliott, D. (1998).  On-line control of rapid aiming movements:  Effect of target characteristics on movement kinematics.  Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 52, 163-173.

 

Heath, M., Roy, E.A., & Weir, P. L. (1999).  Visual-motor integration of unexpected sensory events in young and elderly participants.  Developmental Neuropsychology, 16, 197-211.

 

Elliott, D., Binsted, G., & Heath, M. (1999).  Control of goal-directed limb movements:  Correcting errors in the trajectory.  Human Movement Science, 18, 121-136.