The role of dopamine in age-related deficits in sensorimotor adaptation
Researchers:
Prof Penny Macdonald
Funding Body: Brain Foundation Research Gift
Years: 2019-2020
Summary: The benefit of this project is two fold. First, we will provide causal evidence of the role of dopamine in sensorimotor adaptation, taking a crucial step towards forming a comprehensive framework of the neural mechanisms that underpin age-related declines in sensorimotor adaptation. Second, we will test the feasibility of pharmacologically remediating age-related decline of sensorimotor adaptation. Increasing evidence from animal and human clinical studies suggest that dopamine pharmacotherapy can improve rehabilitation outcomes, however, how dopamine pharmacotherapy improves rehabilitation is unknown. This work will fill this knowledge gap by revealing how dopamine pharmacotherapy affects the multiple components of sensorimotor adaptation, which forms the basis of many forms of movement rehabilitation.
