Title: Neural basis of sequence planning in motor coordination disorders.
Funder: The Academy of Medical Sciences

Abstract: The goal of this project is to uncover the neural mechanisms underlying motor planning in developmental coordination disorder (DCD) and provide entry points for new interventions focussed on motor planning. Disorders of motor coordination such as dyspraxia/DCD affect the learning and control of skilled multi-movement sequences, as opposed to single movements. Unfortunately, until today, our basic understanding of the neural etiology of DCD remains limited. Accordingly, treatment options are not predictively effective and aimed at managing the disorder. Although neural activity during motor planning is increasingly recognised as key to motor skill control, so far studies of DCD focussed on characterising the impaired execution of actions. The main goal of this project is to utilise a novel approach pioneered in my lab that allows a behavioural and neural ‘readout’ of the organisation of sequential movements before sequence execution takes place. My team will employ state-of-the-art pattern decoding of neurophysiological and neuroimaging signals to reveal the neural mechanisms underlying motor sequence planning in individuals with and without coordination disorders. First, we set out to reveal how the internal pre-ordering of movements during sequence preparation is related to skilled sequence execution in individuals with and without coordination disorders. Secondly, we intend to identify the neural generators underlying disorderly planning in DCD. Overall, this project aims to reveal novel behavioural and neural markers of disorderly motor planning in DCD and prepare the ground for new occupational and non-invasive brain-computer-interface based interventions targeting the neural organisation of movements prior to execution.

Lay abstract: The ability to organise one's body for action without having to think about it is taken for granted, whether it is making a cup of coffee, typing an essay on a computer keyboard, or participating in group activities involving sports or dancing. However, up to 10% of the population suffers from developmental coordination disorder (DCD) or dyspraxia, which affects their study, work and day-to-day living, whenever a series of movements need to be coordinated in time to achieve a specific goal. It is not currently known what causes DCD and treatments are therefore limited in their success. In our recent work studying typing-like sequence planning and performance with healthy control participants, we discovered that neural activity in the hundreds of milliseconds preceding movement onset predicts how skilled the execution of the sequence is going to be. Specifically, the more ordered the neural action patterns are during sequence planning, the more fluent and accurate the subsequent execution. This allows us to look, for the first time, “under the hood” before impaired motor performance takes place. The goal of the proposed project is to use this new tool to study the disruptions of sequence planning in individuals with and without sequence production impairments and reveal the brain mechanisms underlying DCD. This work will help to identify new therapeutic entry points focussed on improving the neural organisation of movements during planning to boost action learning and control in individuals with this common, but neglected disorder.

Research activity codes: 1.1 NORMAL BIOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT AND FUNCTIONING;1.2 PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIOECONOMIC PROCESSES
Health categories: NEUROLOGICAL;MENTAL HEALTH