Robert Hardwick
Principal Investigator
Robert studied human neuromotor control at the University of Birmingham, UK (with Martin Edwards in the PSY-NAPS lab, and Chris Miall’s PRISM lab, including a visiting scholarship in Simon Eickhoff’s laboratory in Julich, Germany), Johns Hopkins, USA (Pablo Celnik’s Human Brain Physiology and Stimulation lab, and John Krakauer/Adrian Haith’s Brain, Learning, Animation, and Movement lab), and KU Leuven, Belgium (In Stephan Swinnen’s Movement Control and Neuroplasticity Group). In 2019 he received a dual appointment at the Institute of Neuroscience and the Faculty of Motor Sciences at UC Louvain, Belgium, where he founded the Brain, Action, and Skill Laboratory.
Marcos Moreno-Verdú
Postdoctoral Fellow
Marcos studied physiotherapy at the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain, and specialized in neurological rehabilitation through a Masters degree at the Rey Juan Carlos University of Madrid. He completed his PhD at Complutense University of Madrid in 2021 in the field of motor imagery and Parkinson’s disease. He also studied a Masters degree in Neurosciences while finishing his PhD.
From 2017 to 2022, Marcos has been working part time as researcher and neurological physiotherapist, with a main focus on people with Parkinson’s and stroke. He has clinical experience in advanced neurorehabilitation techniques, including non-invasive neuromodulation (tDCS, TMS, EEG-based neurofeedback), intensive rehabilitation approaches to upper limb and gait motor recovery, robot-assisted therapy and functional electrical stimulation.
From 2022-2023, Marcos was part of the Brain Injury and Movement Disorders Neurorehabilitation Group (GINDAT) at Francisco de Vitoria University, as full-time postdoctoral researcher.
Siobhan McAteer
Postdoctoral Fellow
Siobhan completed her Bachelors in Psychology at Durham University in 2018, before obtaining a Masters in Psychological Research from Oxford University, where she worked with Prof. Masud Husain on distractor filtering in visual working memory. Following this experience, she was awarded funding from Economic and Social Research Council to pursue a PhD at Durham University examining the role of the oculomotor system in visual and spatial working memory under the supervision of Prof Daniel T Smith.
Gautier Hamoline
Doctoral Researcher
Gautier completed his bachelor’s degree in Physical Education at the Faculty of Motor Sciences at UCLouvain. He then obtained his master’s degree in Physical Education with a specialisation in Sports Management at UCLouvain. After working one year as an assistant at the Faculty of Motor Sciences, he started a PhD jointly with the Faculty and the Institute of NeuroScience (IONS), supervised by Prof. Dr. Robert Hardwick.
Mainly using Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, Gautier’s research examines motor cortex function and its plasticity in healthy adults and elite athletes. He is also developing new methods for measuring the effects of non-invasive brain stimulation by coupling EMG, accelerometer, and marker less motion tracking.
In parallel with his thesis, Gautier also works part-time as a Physical Education assistant at the Faculty of Motor Sciences, giving classes to physiotherapy and physical education students.
Elise Van Caenegem
Doctoral Researcher
Elise completed her bachelor’s degree in physical education at UCLouvain in 2020. She then obtained her master’s degree in Physical Education (specialization: didactics) at UCLouvain in 2022.
During her masters, she worked on the under-reporting of information in motor imagery literature. The thesis was supervised by Robert Hardwick (promoter). In her Master Thesis, she investigates whether scientific articles provide enough information about the methods used in the imaging procedure (type of imagery, perspective, etc.).
After her masters, she obtained a FSR grant to start her PhD and join the BAS lab at the Institute Of NeuroScience (IONS), UC Louvain, supervised by Prof. Dr. Robert Hardwick. Elise’s research studies the relationship between motor imagery and executive function.
At the beginning of her PhD she obtained an Erasmus grant for an internship at the Cognition, Action and Sensorimotor Plasticity INSERM U1093 lab, University of Burgundy, supervised by Prof. Dr. Florent Lebon. This allowed her to learn the Use-dependent plasticity TMS technique, for future use in her PhD.
Baptiste Waltzing
Doctoral Researcher
Baptiste obtained his bachelor’s degree in biomedical science at UCLouvain in 2021. He completed his master’s degree in biomedical sciences (neuroscience option) at UCLouvain in 2023. His master’s thesis was conducted in the laboratory under the supervision of Robert Hardwick. His master’s thesis was on the influence of perspective and spatial congruence on action observation.
During his masters thesis, he obtained an Erasmus+ grant to do an internship at the University of Birmingham in the laboratories of Joseph Galea and Ned Jenkinson. During that internship, he worked on the effect of sub-concussive head impacts on brain excitability as well as on bilateral intracortical inhibition during motor preparation and sequence learning. This internship gave him considerable experience of different TMS techniques.
In September 2023, he started a Phd at the BAS lab supervised by Robert Hardwick. He is currently working on Inhibition during Action Observation.
Cédric SPITS
Msc Student
Cédric obtained his bachelor’s degree in physical education at UCLouvain in 2021. He started his master’s degree in physical education (specialization: didactics) at UCLouvain in 2021. He is currently doing is master’s thesis, supervised by Robert Hardwick entitled “Does perceptual cognitive training transfer to on-field performance in team sports players?”
Alumni
Lore Vleugels
Lore was a PhD candidate at the Institute Of NeuroScience (IONS), UC Louvain, supervised by Prof. Dr. Robert Hardwick. She received a BSc in Physical Education and Kinesiology from the KU Leuven, Belgium, and a MSc in Physical Education and Movement Sciences (specialization: Research in Biomedical Kinesiology) from the KU Leuven, Belgium. During her Bachelors, she completed part of her study at the University of Coimbra as an Erasmus student. In the second year of her Masters, she completed an external laboratory internship in the Motivation and Social Neuroscience lab under supervision of Dr. Matthew Apps (University of Oxford, UK).
Lore’s research was funded by an FNRS aspirant grant. Her research focused on the neurobehavioral basis of action selection in healthy ageing. Moreover, she continued to work on the joint research project with the MSN-lab that she started during her lab internship. This project investigated how people’s level of motivation influences the effects of rewards on decision-making behaviour.
Eric Bruck
Msc Student
Eric completed his bachelor’s degree in Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation at UCLouvain in 2022.
He started his master’s degree in Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation at UCLouvain in September 2022. He is currently working on his master’s thesis with Carissia about the following question: ‘Do older adults have greater difficulty in overcoming automatic behaviors?’
They are supervised by Robert Hardwick (promotor).
Carissia Demoutiez
Msc Student
Carissia completed her bachelor’s degree in physiotherapy and rehabilitation at the Faculty of Motor Sciences at UCLouvain in 2022. She started her master’s degree in physiotherapy and rehabilitation (specialization: Technology). Together with Eric Bruck, she is currently doing her master’s thesis supervised by Robert Hardwick (promoter) on “Do older adults have greater difficulty in overcoming automatic behaviors?”. In this context she will do an internship in the lab introducing her into the world of research.
Florian Waltzing
Msc Student
Florian completed his bachelor‘s degree in Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation at UCLouvain in 2022. He started his master‘s degree in 2022 at UCLouvain and is working with Gautier Hamoline on his master‘s thesis “Task-based connectivity of the Prefrontal Cortex during Working Memory; a MACM analysis“ supervised by Robert Hardwick.