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Sep 2023

New article with Mark Edwards debating significance of clinical phenotype and how systems-level understanding is critical to optimise treatment strategies in patients: Between Nothing and Everything: Phenomenology in Movement Disorders

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Sep 2023

Symposium at Royal College of Music co-organised with Maria Herrojo Ruiz.  Thank you to the panel, RCM colleagues and brilliant audience.  Really enjoyed the informative discussions that flowed around the neuroscience of expert performance.  Made possible by outreach grants from the Guarantors of Brain and Goldsmiths.

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Jul 2023

Excited to be starting a new consultant clinical academic post in Sep 2023.  I'll be based at Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Uni applying pattern recognition and machine learning methods to the behavioural dynamics of movement disorders. Wellcome Trust five-year Early Career Award.

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Jun 2023

Huge thanks to all chapter authors in the book Basic and Translational Applications of the Network Theory in Dystonia that I co-edited with Asif Shaikh.  A range of experimental papers and reflections on this important topic. 

 

Jun 2023

Thank you to the DMRF for the fantastic dystonia meeting in Dublin.  I debated with Quartarone what we do and don't know about plasticity mechanisms in dystonia.  Link to book chapter: Physiology of dystonia: Human studies  that discusses much of the content  ...

 

Mar 2023

As part of the dystonia special series for the MDS podcast I was interviewed on the neural underpinnings of dystonia by Francesca Morgante.  

 

Feb 2023

Katja Kornysheva and I are leading one of the neurotech N-Code challenges to improve neurological community-based care.  Applications are open till end of Feb to join the first study group meeting in Cornwall in March.  An initiative across academia, neurology and industry.

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Oct 2022

Writing funding applications to be hosted by Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit for next academic position.  Attending their machine learning lectures and tutorials.  An amazing opportunity to train in state of the art and powerful methods. 

 

Sep 2022

How is task-specific dystonia is represented in the brain?  Professional musicians with and without dystonia were scanned during this collaboration with Jörn Diedrichsen's group.  We applied a range of analysis methods to explore somatotopy and representational architecture with a focus on the primary sensorimotor cortex.  Published in Brain

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Jun 2022

The similarity of eyeblink conditioning behaviour in dystonia and controls is against a global deficit in cerebellar learning.  I discuss the implications our findings have for how we define cerebellar involvement in dystonia pathophysiology.  Published in MDJ. A research digest will be published early 2023 in Dystonia Matters for the Dystonia Society.

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Apr 2022

A commissioned practice pointer on dystonia in the BMJ. The late Adam Kalinowski skilfully sculpted the content.  We hope it will increase awareness of dystonia and offer a clinical roadmap for patient management.

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Oct 2021 

Amazing panel of talks at the Dystonia Medical Research Foundation Workshop.  I discussed how the field of motor control can contribute to our knowledge of dystonic networks particularly at a mechanistic level.   

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Aug 2021

How can motor control features of the subtypes of dystonia translate into novel treatments?  Summarised current work during a talk at Progress in Motor Control, virtual Aukland.    

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Jun 2021

Great range of talks and informative discussions at the 11th International Symposium on Research on the Cerebellum and Ataxias.  Re-debated the title of my PhD by giving a talk on the role of the cerebellum in dystonia.  

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May 2021

A beautiful evening to be talking about Writers' Cramp at the Royal Society of Medicine in their clinical neuroscience series examining reading and writing ​

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Mar 2021

Presenting posters on DYT1 and task-specific dystonia @ BRAIN The Conference 

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Sep 2020

Its dystonia awareness month - have produced a video on task-specific dystonia for Dystonia Society UK

 

Jul 2020

Attending a three week summer school Neuromatch: a beautiful global initiative providing a fundamental education in modern computational neuroscience. 

 

Apr 2020

Outcomes from novel DBS approaches in cervical dystonia with Francesca Morgante and Erlick Perreira look excellent using wireless EMG and motion capture technology.

 

Feb 2020

New paper in the journal Brain modelling decision making in patients with functional movement disorders in which we identify abnormalities in information accumulation.  A collaboration with Corinna Daum and Sanjay Manohar.  Scientific commentary by Jon Stone in same issue provides historical context and summarises key features of our study looking at decision making in functional movement disorders.

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Sep 2019

Public understanding of neurology grant  awarded by Guarantors of Brain!  ‘The Neurology and Neuroscience of Expert Musical Performance’ will be a collaboration with Katja Kornysheva and Maria Herrojo-Ruiz in which a variety of medium will be used to increase public accessibility to the neuroscience behind expert performance.  

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Jun 2019

Baby Nicolás has arrived safely and will be on maternity leave for six months!

 

Mar 2019

What are the mechanisms behind the ordinal structure of skilled sequential action?  New paper led by Katja Kornysheva examining the neural markers of competitive queuing published in Neuron.

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Jan 2019

New paper with Jaume Rosset i Llobet which discusses how a motor control framework can directly inform successful rehabilitation techniques for task-specific dystonia.  

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Nov 2018

What's in a Name? Conundrums Common to the Task-Specific Disorders. Editorial with Katja Kornysheva for Movement Disorders in Clinical Practice.  

 

Sep 2018 

New paper with Joe Galea and Movement Disorders Group at University College London examining cerebellar mechanisms in DYT11 myoclonus dystonia.  Movement Disorders.

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Jul 2018 

Wonderful to have Scott Albert from Reza Shadmehr's lab visit to develop new experimental paradigms in generalised dystonia.  â€‹

 

May 2018 

How can motor neuroscience keep our musicians healthy? Thank you to the  Healthy Conservertoires meeting for inviting me to talk and opening the discussion... 

 

Feb 2018

New paper with Joe Galea exploring variability and motor learning in DYT-1 dystonia published in Nature Scientific Reports

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Dec 2017

Paper accepted with Katja Kornysheva: "A unifying motor control framework for task-specific dystonia" Nature Reviews in Neurology

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Nov 2017

Wonderful to visit the Institute of Music Physiology and Musicians' Medicine in Hannover.  Incredible clinical service and lab.  Thank you to Professor Eckart Altenmuller,  Dr Christos Ioannou and the other members of the lab for their hospitality.

 

Nov 2017

Talk at the Basal Ganglia Club, National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery hosted by Professor Kailash Bhatia 

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Oct 2017

Project grant awarded by the Royal Society project grant for a motion capture device to continue work examining kinematic features of movement disorders

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Aug 2017

Start a Chadburn Clinical Lectureship at St George's University of London

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