Proud Of Our History Statement of Purpose Dr. Frederick Banting Chairman's Message Investing in Research Board of Trustees Grant Review Panel Contact Us Home » About Us » Investing In Research Research is an investment in the future and the progress of our recent grantees are the fruits of this investment. Below, we feature the work of Dr. Denise Y, P. Henriques, an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Vision Research in the School of Kinesiology and Health Science of York University. In 2009, Dr. Henriques was awarded the prestigious Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in recognition of her research performance and potential to make important contributions to her field of study. Dr. Henriques received The Banting Research Foundation-CIHR Award in 2006, as a seed grant to study how the brain integrates the input from multiple senses to control movement. The Banting Research Foundation-CIHR Award is awarded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) on the recommendation of The Banting Reseach Foundation. Impaired movement is a debilitating feature of many brain disorders, including strokes, tumors, injury, and degenerative disease. Rehabilitation of of these patients involves the re-learning of motor skills to regain the use of paralyzed limbs. This learning process requires visual and postural sensory inputs to guide purposeful movement. In the most severe cases of brain injury, the coordination between sensory inputs and motor movements is itself impaired, compromising the learning process to regain motor skills. Dr. Henriques studies how sensory cues are coordinated with motor movements in normal subjects and uses a specialized technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify which brain areas are activated during this process. This research will expand our understanding of how sensory inputs direct motor movements and how the brain integrates this information to coordinate motor skills. The results of this work will contribute to the design of training programs for rehabilitation of patients with motor deficits following brain injury. Representative publication: T. Wong and D.Y. Henriques (2009) Visuomotor adaptation does not re-calibrate kinesthetic sense of felt hand path. Journal of Neurophysiology , 101: 614 - 623