Cognitive Motor Control Laboratory

555 14th Street, Room 1401
Atlanta, GA 30332-0356
Phone:404-385-2744

Research Interests

The brain is a highly complex system and allows us to accomplish many types of complex motor control tasks. The work in our lab is directed at understanding the neural networks involved in accomplishing many types of complex motor tasks in the upper (ex. Making gestures) and lower (ex. Walking) extremities. We use neural recording techniques such as electroencephalography (EEG) and imaging (fMRI) to understand what areas drive a complex motor task, and how these areas interact to execute a planned movement. As well, we are focused on how these networks change after neural injury, particularly stroke.

Personnel

• Director: Lewis A. Wheaton, Ph.D.
• Post-doctoral Fellows: J. Chris Mizelle, Ph.D.
• Graduate Students: Nikhilesh Natraj (Ph.D.), William Cusack (Ph.D.), Rachel Kelly (Ph.D.), Sheryl Nathanson (MSPO), Michael Cope (MSPO).

Research Opportunities

We welcome any undergraduate or graduate student, interested in understanding neurorehabilitaiton of upper or lower extremity motor tasks. Please do not hesitate to contact Dr. Wheaton about research opportunities in the lab.

Current Research Projects

We currently have two main research projects of study.

• The first is to investigate how we associate objects and the movements that go along with these objects in the upper extremity. This work focuses on healthy subjects to establish neural patterns, then determine how these patterns change after stroke that results in a condition known as apraxia, a deficit of complex motor control. This uses EEG and MRI in order to capture neural patterns related to such cognitive motor tasks.
  
  
  
  
  
• The second project involves neurorehabilitation in lower extremity motor control, and how the brain uses various forms of sensory feedback to improve lower extremity motor control after stroke. Our focus is on stroke survivors with residual weakness in the ankle.

Recent Publications

Publication Abstracts

Original Articles

• Wheaton, L.A., Villagra, F., Hanley, D.F., Macko, RF and Forrester L.W. Reliability of TMS motor evoked potentials in quadriceps of subjects with chronic hemiparesis after stroke. J Neurol Sci; 2009; 276: 115-117.
• Hattori, N., Shibasaki, H., Wheaton, L.A., Wu, T., Matsuhashi, M., & Hallett, M. Discrete parieto-frontal connectivity related to grasping objects. J Neurophysiol; 2009; 101: 1267-82.
• Wheaton, L.A., Bohlhalter, S, Fridman, E., Vorbach, S., & Hallett, M. Left parietal cortex activation related to planning, executing, and suppressing praxis hand movements. Clin Neurophysiol; 2009; 120: 980–986.
• Fridman, E., Crespo, M., Gomez Arguello, S, Villarreal, M, Bohlhalter, S., Wheaton, L. & Hallett, M. Kinematic improvement following Botulinum Toxin-A injection in upper limb spasticity due to stroke. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2010; 81: 423-427.
• Mizelle, J.C. & Wheaton, L.A. Neural Activation for Conceptual Identification of Correct Versus Incorrect Tool-Object Pairs. Brain Research; 2010; 1354: 100-112.
• Johnson, A; Wheaton, L.A., Shinohara, M. Attenuation of Corticomuscular Coherence with Additional Motor or Non-motor Task. Clin Neurophysiol; 2011; 122: 356-63.
• Mizelle, J.C. & Wheaton, L.A. Testing perceptual limits of functional units: are there "automatic" tendencies to associate tools and objects? Neurosci Lett; 2011; 488: 92-96.
• Mizelle, J.C. & Wheaton, L.A. Why is that hammer in my coffee: A multimodal imaging investigation of contextually-based tool understanding. Front. Hum. Neurosci; 2011; 4:233. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2010.00233.
• Mizelle, J.C., Tang, T., Pirouz, N. & Wheaton, L.A. Forming tool-use representations: a neurophysiological investigation into tool exposure. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 2011; 23:10, pp. 2920–2934.

Review Articles

• Wheaton, L.A., Parietal Representations for Hand-Object Interactions. J. Neurosci 2007; 27: 969-970.
• Wheaton, L.A. and Hallett, M. Ideomotor apraxia: a review. J Neurol Sci 2007; 260: 1-10.
• Buxbaum LJ, Haaland KY, Hallett M, Wheaton L, Heilman KM, Rodriguez A, Gonzales-Rothi L. Treatment of limb apraxia: moving forward to improved action. Am J Phys Med Rehabil 2008; 87(2): 149-161.
• Forrester L.W., Wheaton, L.A., Luft A. Exercise-mediated locomotor recovery and lower extremity neuroplasticity after stroke. J Rehabil Res Dev; 45 (2): 205-220.