Dr Jonathan Shemmell Ph.D.
Dr Shemmell gained his Ph.D. in human motor control and neurophysiology from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. His doctoral dissertation examined the nature of adaptations in muscle activation patterns during skill acquisition and the role of the primary motor cortex in consolidating learned activation patterns following practice. His initial post-doctoral work was conducted at Boston University with Prof. Gerald Gottlieb where, in collaboration with Profs. Daniel Corcos and Ziaul Hasan at the University of Illinois at Chicago, he investigated potential strategies used by the healthy central nervous system to simplify the control of multi-joint movements. He is currently conducting a study in collaboration with Dr. Gwyn Lewis which examines the effects of high frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) applied to the affected cortical hemisphere of individuals recovering from stroke.
In general, his research interests involve understanding the conditions under which cortical plasticity occurs within motor areas in the human brain and using this understanding to enhance plasticity in individuals with impairments of the central nervous system, such as stroke. Specifically, Dr. Shemmell intends to conduct experiments examining the link between decreased intracortical inhibition and synaptic plasticity in both healthy individuals and those recovering from stroke.