Our Mission
The mission of the Motor Learning and Rehabilitation Laboratory at Arizona State University is to conduct low-cost, high-access human subjects research that can be applied to clinical rehabilitative and neurologic practice. We study interactions between cognitive and motor systems within the human brain. Research within the laboratory focuses on how the human nervous system learns new motor skills, and relearns existing ones during motor recovery following neural damage. Findings from this research are currently providing much-needed evidence to support and optimize the design of targeted rehabilitative training for older adults across a range of age-related physical disabilities by incorporating cognitive assessments into baseline evaluations. Our latest work also focuses on identifying unique deficits in motor learning that may indicate future cognitive decline and dementia, based on their associations with current biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease.