Professor Paul M. Matthews, Professor of Clinical Neurosciences, presents his Inaugural Lecture on; “The plastic brain: skill learning and motor receovery after brain injury.”
In the Chair: Professor David Brooks
Vote of Thanks: Professor Lefkos Middleton
Abstract: Mechanisms of brain plasticity that contribute to learning and development of the brain also help patients recover after brain injury. In recent work, my colleagues and I have characterised differences in motor control networks that account for inter-individual variation in performance. Individual differences in bran structure can be related to these functional network activity differences. Data will be presented to test the hypothesis that these brain networks also contribute to motor recovery after stroke. Converging anatomical and functional evidence suggest that the dorsal premotor cortex and the cerebellum play uniquely important roles. Such structural and functional brain imaging studies are providing an unprecedented level of detail concerning the dynamics of cognitive systems during learning or recovery after brain injury and promise applications for response stratification of patients in clinical trials, novel outcome measures and, more ambitiously, guiding targeted therapies.
Biography: Paul M Matthews is Professor of Clinical Neurosciences at Imperial College, London, Vice President for Imaging and Head of the GSK Clinical Imaging Centre in Hammersmith Hospital within the Drug Discovery Division of GlaxoSmithKline. In addition, he holds academic appointments as Hon. Professor of University College London in the Institute of Neurology, Adjunct Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery at McGill University and Fellow by Special Election of St. Edmund Hall, Oxford. He was awarded an OBE in 2008 for services to Neuroscience. Previously he was MRC Clinical Professor, Director of the FMRIB Centre and Head, Department of Clinical Neurology in the University of Oxford.
A tea/coffee reception will precede the lecture at 16.45 in the Oak Suite lounge and a drinks reception will follow the lecture at 18.30 on the Mezzanine Floor of the Burlington Danes Building.
To register for this event please email: l.brown@imperial.ac.uk