Nicole Wenderoth

Research Interests

After her PhD she investigated three major question: First, she was interested how the left and the right hemisphere of the human brain communicate with each other when both hands need to be moved at the same time. It is well known that some bimanual movements are easy, like clapping the hands, while others are difficult, like patting the head while rubbing the stomach. They could show that neural control differs fundamentally between these situations revealing how the brain computes a common movement plan for the two hands. Second, they showed that observing a movement made by others is sufficient to activate the motor cortex of the observer which encodes important parameters like the associated muscle activity. This is an important mechanism which allows to intuitively understand actions made by others. Interestingly this ability is impaired in volunteers how lost either vision or hearing from birth on and in individuals suffering from Autism. Finally, they investigated how motor learning and skill acquisition can be enhanced, e.g. by additional movement observation or by non-invaisve brain stimulation methods.