CHBH Seminar Series: Dr Katja Kornysheva

CHBH Seminars are free to attend and are open to all, both within and outside the University. Please register your interest to attend using the link above.

We are pleased to announce that the CHBH will welcome Dr Katja Kornysheva, Lecturer/Assistant Professor in Psychology at the School of Psychology, Bangor University, to present a Seminar on her research, taking place on Thursday 29th October 13:00-14:00 BST.

If you wish to arrange a 1:1 session with Dr Kornysheva on the day, please contact us. 

Neural organization of movements for skilled sequence control

Until recently, our knowledge of the neural control of action sequences in humans has been indirect. Primarily, it was derived from invasive recordings in animal models, computer simulations and behavioural markers during sequence execution. I will present an approach where we employed pattern classification and non-invasive neurophysiological signals to assess the dynamic neural formation of sequential finger movement patterns during the retrieval, preparation and production periods. Specifically, I will show that during planning the probability of each sequential action pattern is ordered according to its position in the upcoming sequence at a group, subject and single-trial level, with its configuration predicting subsequent performance. Crucially, the preparatory neural pattern is shared across sequences with different actions, suggesting the retrieval of a high-level generic neural code for the whole sequence during planning. Second, I will present behavioural work, which provides a window into the internal state of sequential movements during sequence planning and its modulation by preparation duration and sequence timing. Finally, I will present preliminary data that reveals how we can disentangle between sequence encoding during preparation and production periods across the neocortex using fMRI. Together, our findings favour a hierarchical and modular model of sequence control, with timing, position and movement being controlled independently.

Kornysheva K, Bush D, Meyer SS, Sadnicka A, Barnes G, Burgess N. Neural Competitive Queuing of Ordinal Structure Underlies Skilled Sequential Action. Neuron 101: 1166-1180.e3, 2019.

Mantziara M, Ivanov T, Houghton G, Kornysheva K. Competitive state of actions during planning predicts sequence execution accuracy. bioRxiv, 2020 https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.08.085068.

Biography

Katja Kornysheva obtained her PhD in Psychology at the Max Planck Institutes for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences and for Neurological Research in 2011. She has subsequently taken up a Marie Curie Postdoctoral position at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London (UCL) and was awarded a Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2012 to conduct her research in humans and rodents at UCL and the Neuroscience Department at Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam. In 2017, she has taken up a post as Lecturer at the School of Psychology and Neuroimaging Unit, Bangor University, where she is leading the Skilled Action Memory Lab. Katja’s goal is to improve our understanding of how the human brain enables the learning and control of complex actions in health and disease.

Dr Kornysheva's Twitter
Kornysheva Lab Website

CHBH Seminars are free to attend and are open to all, both within and outside the University. Please register your interest to attend using the link above.