PI: Grefkes; Collaborators: Debener, Kranczioch

Stroke is a major cause of acquired motor disability. The most important driver of motor recovery in stroke is cortical reorganization. Neuroimaging studies have consistently shown that also activity in non-motor areas such as prefrontal cortex is enhanced during motor recovery. However, despite several ideas on how such "cognitive" areas might contribute to basic motor control in stroke patients, experimental data are lacking. This PhD project will use cutting-edge system's neuroscience methods such as combined TMS-EEG and online-TMS interference embedded in a clinical setting to elucidate the causal role of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex for motor function and recovery in stroke patients. The expected results may lay the ground for new therapeutic targets to promote recovery of function after stroke.

 Contact: grefkes-hermann@em.uni-frankfurt.de

PI: Debener, Grefkes; Collaborator: Herrmann

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is an established noninvasive procedure for probing human brain function. We will combine TMS with the measurement of brain electrical activity (EEG) for the assessment of functional properties of the motor network in healthy individuals and subacute stroke patients.

Contact: stefan.debener@uol.de

PI: Kranczioch; Collaborators: Thiel, Grefkes, Witt

Neurofeedback focusing on motor and premotor brain areas can provide an effective intervention for improving motor function in stroke. An ongoing challenge is the implementation and validation of the still mainly lab-based interventions outside the lab. This PhD project aims to contribute to addressing this challenge by combining home-based EEG neurofeedback training in stroke patients with comprehensive pre- and postintervention functional, behavioral and brain imaging (fMRI, EEG) assessments. Analysis of brain imaging data will explore activity in networks and brain regions beyond motor and premotor brain areas. Of particular interest to the project will be the dorso-lateral prefrontal cortex and cortical motor/premotor - dorso-lateral prefrontal functional connectivity.

Contact: cornelia.kranczioch@uol.de

PI: Hein; Collaborator: Kranczioch

Impairments in activities of daily living (ADL) are prevalent in about 50% of stroke survivors. Consistently, ADLs are an important outcome criterion for interventions aiming to improve upper limb function, though commonly used assessment tools regularly fail to show significant improvements. This PhD project aims to combine body-related inertial measurement units on both lower and upper arms with low-resolution infrared arrays and high-resolution depth imaging cameras and use data features for classifying upper arm ADL tasks performed of stroke patients during rehabilitation at home.

Contact: andreas.hein@uni-oldenburg.de

PI: H. Hildebrandt, Roheger, Kranczioch

The project centres around the observation that fast forgetting following distraction is a common problem in amnesia and can also affect patients with stroke, and the assumption that a state of decreased post-learning interference immediately after a memory task may promote memory in these patients. Aim of the PhD project is to identify EEG signatures of decreased post-learning interference and successful interference control, and to develop and evaluate an EEG neurofeedback that helps to achieve this state. The PhD student will initially work with healthy elderly participants and subsequently with stroke patients.

Contact: mandy.roheger@uni-oldenburg.de

PI: Özyurt; Collaborators: Herrmann, Thiel

Research on cognitive rehabilitation of stroke patients reported heterogeneous results, low quality of evidence, and improvements mostly observable in the short, but not in the long-term. This PhD project will investigate whether effects of an interference control training can be improved by concurrent application of a transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) protocol in healthy older participants and patients with stroke presenting executive deficits.

Contact: jale.oezyurt@uni-oldenburg.de

PI: Rieger; Collaborator: Hein

Driving is a complex everyday task that requires strong interference control.  For older and younger people driving is central to maintain mobility, autonomy, and social interaction. This project aims a better understanding the brain basis of interference control during driving across the lifespan and to develop predictors for lapses of iit. The successful candidate will investigate and compare brain networks underlying interference control across two age groups and in two intervention schemes. The experiments will be performed in a rare MRI-compatible driving simulator setup and analysis methods will draw on machine learning techniques.

Contact: jochem.rieger@uol.de

PI: Andrea Hildebrandt; Collaborators: Brütt, Özyurt, Kranczioch

Individuals’ real-world cognitive functioning can be considered the ultimate clinical outcome relevant for diagnosis and evaluation of intervention success. However, assessment challenges for such outcomes are immense. Retrospective self-reports are often a poor proxy of the targeted outcome due to a multitude of biases. Ambulatory assessment and experience sampling methodologies are powerful emerging tools to immediately capture behavior in different situations at different times of the day. This PhD project will develop a specific instrument for assessing internal and external cognitive interference during daily life activities as experienced by stroke patients and will evaluate the instrument as an experience sampling method.

Contact: andrea.hildebrandt@uni-oldenburg.de

PI: Herrmann; Collaborator: Witt

Prior studies have shown changes in oscillatory activity in the beta, gamma and theta range in patients with Parkinson’s disease. Theta activity originating from medial prefrontal cortex has been tightly linked to interference control. First evidence points to reduced theta oscillations in a cognitive control task in Parkinson’s disease patients and changes in anterior cingulate dopamine metabolism which may contribute to dysexecutive behavior. Oscillatory brain activity can be modulated by transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS). In young, healthy volunteers we have previously used tACS to up-regulate theta oscillations. In this PhD project, we plan to use a widely used visual go/no-go paradigm  which reliably evokes theta responses. In different experimental conditions, theta will either be up- or down-regulated in healthy humans by tACS to demonstrate that up- and downregulated theta oscillations in fact make behavior better and worse, respectively. If successful, a second study will apply theta-tACS in Parkinson’s disease patients in cooperation with PI Witt.

Contact: christoph.herrmann@uni-oldenburg.de

PI: Thiel; Collaborators: Witt, Grefkes

Cholinergic and noradrenergic neuromodulation are of interest for improvement of cognitive and motor function, in both, Parkinson’s disease and stroke. Heterogeneous and/or small effects of pharmacological stimulation are however a challenge. Therefore, an important next step is to identify suitable predictors of beneficial drug effects. This PhD project will aim to identify neural predictors of individual drug responses in a larger sample of older volunteers using restings state, structural and task-based fMRI.

Contact: christiane.thiel@uni-oldenburg.de

PI: Witt; Collaborators: Thiel, Debener

A hallmark of Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the loss of dopaminergic neurons. However, other neurotransmitters such as noradrenaline are also affected and directly contribute to disease symptoms on the level of non-motor functions such as cognitive control and motivational behaviour. Targeting the auricular branch of the vagus nerve, previous studies demonstrated the activation of the noradrenergic locus coeruleus by a transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS) in healthy subjects. This PhD project will aim to identify the impact of tVNS in PD, namely we will explore the effects of tVNS on cognitive (interference resolution) and motivational functions. Here, we will use pupillometry, EEG and cognitive and behavioral tests.

Contact: neurologie@uni-oldenburg.de

PI: Debener; Collaborators: Witt, Hein

Cognitive-motor interference is highly prevalent in many daily situations, particularly when complex movement sequences or motor planning are required, such as during natural gait. Transcranial vagus nerve stimulation is a noninvasive procedure and may improve gait parameters and freezing of gait in patients with Parkinson’s disease. We will use tVNS and mobile EEG to study the cortical contributions to gait and gait abnormalities.

Contact: stefan.debener@uol.de

PI: Brütt; Collaborators: Hildebrand, Hein

Participatory approaches assure patient-centeredness by obtaining a holistic view of how neuromodulation interventions are perceived by patients, with respect to their effects including benefits and harms, way of action as well as barriers and facilitators for the translation of neuromodulation techniques in routine care. This PhD project will aim to explore patients’ expectations and preferences on neuromodulation and identify barriers and facilitators for the translation of neuromodulation techniques in routine care from the patients’ perspectives.

Contact: anna.levke.bruett@uni-oldenburg.de

Aim of this project is to identify how different neuromodulatory approaches impact dysfunctional brain networks and which brain network measures contribute to successful treatment outcome. Depending on the background and interests of the candidate, the project can be shaped to focus on structural or functional network analyses using either (f)MRI or EEG data. The project will tightly interact with several of the PhD projects above and focus on network-based structural and functional connectivity measures.

Contact: christiane.thiel@uni-oldenburg.de

PI: Roheger; Collaborators: Herrmann, Witt, Thiel

Transcranial Pulse Stimulation (TPS) is a new and promising, non-invasive method to modulate brain functions. Its feasibility and safety have been demonstrated in human studies and first clinical studies have shown the safety and feasibility of TPS in healthy controls and patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Thus, the PhD project will extend the current knowledge and test the impact of TPS as a neuromodulatory tool on the primary sensory cortex and on cognitive functions in patients with Parkinson’s disease. Also, further brain stimulation techniques and their impact on cognition can be studied in this PhD project.

Contact: mandy.roheger@uni-oldenburg.de

PI: Thiel; Collaborators: A. Hildebrandt; external collaborator: Prof. Dr. Yulia Golub

One crucial period in human social and cognitive development is the time of adolescence which is often accompanied by substance use and abuse which can have severe impacts on interference control. In this PhD project, a lab-based and smartphone-based interference control assessment task will be established. Its clinical implementation will be tested in both cannabis SUD adolescents and post-stroke elderly subjects focussing on the recovery phase and comparing the effects against the data of age matched healthy control subjects. Finally, a training app for post substance use young adults will be developed.

Contact: christiane.thiel@uni-oldenburg.de

PI: Herrmann; Collaborator: Roheger

Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation (tACS) is a non-invasive method to modulate brain functions. Its feasibility and safety have been demonstrated in human studies and first studies also investigated its effect on patient populations. Thus, the PhD project will extend the current knowledge and test the impact of tACS as a therapeutic tool for patients with Parkinson’s disease at home.

Contact: christoph.herrmann@uni-oldenburg.de

PI: Debener; Collaborators: Hein, Witt

One of the key predictors of cognitive decline is gait slowing. This holds true in particular when gait speed is assessed during a cognitive task (walk & talk). This project will investigate whether gait slowing during talking can also serve as an outcome measure for the assessment of neuromodulation interventions. A focus will be the development and validation of implicit gait and speech assessments, preferably with unobtrusive sensors worn at the ear and mobile technology. 

Contact: stefan.debener@uol.de

PI: Herrmann, Kranczioch

Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation (tACS) is a non-invasive method to brain oscillations and cognitive and motor functions. Its feasibility and safety have been demonstrated in human studies. EEG neurofeedback is another approach to modulate brain oscillations. It is hitherto unknown whether both methods work equally well in all subjects. Thus, the PhD project will compare the two methods regarding their ability to modulate EEG oscillations and – in turn – motor performance.

Contact: christoph.herrmann@uni-oldenburg.de