Grant: CIHR Fellowship

Consider the simple act of picking up a coffee mug. You look at the mug and use your vision to guide your hand as you reach out and grasp it. But the simplicity of this act is actually misleading given the complex computations the brain must perform to transform visual information about an object's location and shape into motor commands to steer and form the hand for grasping. The complexity behind this action is more evident when the brain mechanisms underlying eye-hand coordination are damaged after stroke. Every year 50,000 Canadians suffer a stroke, while another 300,000 are left with lingering impairments that affect their quality of life. Currently, there remains an unmet need to better understand how stroke affects eye-hand coordination that may lead to improved rehabilitation. Most research on impaired eye-hand coordination in stroke is based on simple actions such as reaching to pick up a single object on an empty table. Our goal is to test stroke patients in reach-to-grasp tasks that are more reflective of everyday actions (e.g., reaching for a cup on a cluttered table or a jar behind other items in a cupboard). We will examine how well stroke patients with impaired eye-hand coordination can reach and grasp an object while taking into account obstacles in their hand-path. We will systematically vary the position and proximity of these obstacles and measure precisely how they alter where patients look and reach. Based on this knowledge we will then examine how strategically placing these obstacles might actually improve impaired eye-hand coordination by guiding the patient as to where to look and move the hand. We will examine if repeated practise in this task results in lasting behavioural improvements. Lastly, previous research show improved motor actions when patients have to rely on their memory of where the reach target is located. We will extend these previous findings by clarifying the role memory plays in improving motor actions in stroke patients.