MOTOR PERFORMANCE LABORATORY
Department of Neurology
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons
August 2003
The Motor Performance Laboratory is a research facility dedicated to the study of the neural
basis of limb movement control in health and neurologic disease. Specific areas of research
include:
• Mechanisms of motor learning
• The role of motor learning in adaptation to progressive brain dysfunction caused by
neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington's disease and Parkinson's disease
• The role of motor learning in recovery of motor function after stroke
Our research program's goals include:
• To understand how brain lesions and neurodegenerative disorders produce abnormal
movements
• To identify objective manifestations of disease for diagnostic purposes and to monitor the
effects of treatment
• To design improved rehabilitation strategies
• To gain insight, through the effects of disease, into the mechanisms of normal motor
control
The laboratory is located in the Neurological Institute at the Health Sciences Campus of
Columbia University in New York City. It is co-directed by Drs. Pietro Mazzoni and John
Krakauer.
Research Techniques
The major research techniques used in the laboratory are:
• Motor psychophysics: Understanding motor control principles and strategies by recording
the performance of human subjects in motor execution and motor learning tasks
involving reaching and pointing
• Functional Brain Imaging: Identifying neural networks that underlie motor control by
recording brain activation with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in healthy
subjects and in patients with movement disorders and stroke while they perform pointing
tasks
• Reversible Lesions: Mapping the critical roles of cortical areas by recording the effects
on motor performance of brief, reversible functional inactivation of cortical patches with
transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in human subjects.
Adjacent Institutions
Some of the adjacent institutions and facilities include the following:
1) The New York Presbyterian Hospital, Columbia-Presbyterian campus: a 1000-bed
medical center that includes an inpatient Neurology Ward, an inpatient Stroke Unit, and a 12bed neurological/neurosurgical intensive care unit.
2) The Neurological Institute, which houses divisions devoted to the clinical care of
cerebrovascular disorders, movement disorders, neuromuscular disorders, pediatric neurologic
diseases, neurosurgical disorders, and epilepsy. The Institute also houses two imaging centers
entirely devoted to brain functional MRI research: the Functional Neuroimaging Center,
directed by Joy Hirsch, PhD, and the Hatch Magnetic Imaging Center, headed by Truman
Brown, PhD.
3) The New York State Psychiatric Institute, a facility devoted both to psychiatric research
and inpatient and outpatient clinical psychiatric care.
4) The Mailman School of Public Health, an institution offering courses in biostatistics and
bioethics. The School also has a biostatistics group that is in active collaboration with many
research groups for the purpose of data analysis.
5) The Irving Clinical Research Center, a 20-bed unit entirely devoted to clinical research
studies. The center is available for research groups throughout the campus to follow patients
enrolled in research studies under full medical supervision.
Staff
As of August 2003, the Motor Performance Laboratory included the following staff:
Leia Bagesteiro, PhD, Visiting Researcher
Joshua Cappell, MD, PhD, Researcher, Neurologist
Ilan Dinstein, BS, Research Assistant
John Krakauer, MD, Co-Director
Pietro Mazzoni, MD, PhD, Co-Director
Antonio Mantovani, MD, Visiting Researcher
Roshni Ravindran, BS, Research Assistant
Patient Databases
Clinical population of patients, followed through formal databases of quantitative clinical and
epidemiologic descriptors:
Stroke:
Cerebrovascular Division, Dept. of Neurology, Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center
(CPMC)
Movement Disorders:
Center for Parkinson's Disease and Other Movement Disorders, Dept. of Neurology,
CPMC
Huntington's Disease Clinic, New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI), CPMC
Collaborations
• Truman Brown, PhD: Hatch Brain Imaging Center (fMRI), Dept. of Neurology, CPMC
• Claude Ghez, MD: Motor Control Laboratory, Center for Neurobiology and Behavior,
Columbia University
• Joy Hirsch, MD: Functional Brain Imaging Laboratory (fMRI), Dept. of Neurology,
CPMC
• Sarah H. Lisanby, MD: Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Laboratory, NYSPI
• Randolph Marshall, MD: Cerebral Localization Laboratory, CPMC
• Robert Sainburg, PhD: Movement Neuroscience Laboratory, Dept. of Kinesiology,
Pennsylvania State University
Funding and Support
The Motor Performance Laboratory is supported by research grants from the National
Institutes of Health, the Huntington's Disease Society of America, and the
Lowenstein Foundation.