Profile

I’m a neuroscientist at UCL interested in human movement and the central nervous system that produces it. Most of us think little of typing out a text message or picking up a cup of hot chocolate and drinking from it, and yet how the brain produces these seemingly simple movements is still a mystery.

(As a bit of an aside, one chap called Daniel Wolpert has argued that the whole reason we have brains is to produce movement!)

In my work I use non-invasive brain stimulation methods to probe the function of the motor system. I’m also interested in how and whether these stimulation techniques, which can sometimes have longer lasting effects on brain function, might be used alongside traditional rehabilitation after brain injury or disease.

My typical day involves a mixture of: talking (often about research ideas, my data, other peoples research or data); looking at data and crunching numbers; writing up research findings to submit to journals for publication; talking to and testing research participants (who kindly agree to perform our little tasks and have their brains stimulated at the same time!). This is all fuelled by lots of coffee and cake.