Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

New research suggests that people with MS may have difficulties with sensorimotor integration (SMI). SMI is when your brain takes sensory information and uses it to change your movements. For instance, seeing a cat running across the road and using that visual information to tell your foot to press on the brake. People with MS have described feeling overwhelmed in situations with a lot of sensory input (ex: busy shopping mall) or slowed reaction times, which may be due to difficulties with SMI. A few studies have shown that people with MS had slower and reduced connection between sensory and motor areas of the brain. However, this is a new area of research that has yet to be further explored and understood in people with MS. We therefore aim to understand, from the perspective of people living with MS, how they feel MS impacts their daily living and whether this is related to SMI impairment. The next step is to determine which people have SMI impairment by creating a test that measures SMI. Lastly, we plan to create rehabilitation therapy aimed at improving SMI function, which will ideally translate into improved everyday function for people with MS.