"Structural and Functional Neuroplasticity of Parkinson’s Disease Following a Sensori-motor Contingent Musical Walking Intervention (Ambulosono)."

Sun Nee Tan, a Ph.D. candidate in the Graduate Program in Neuroscience at the University of British Columbia, is a new recipient of the IFER fellowship. Under the mentorship of Dr. Martin McKeown, Sun Nee will be using state-of-the-art brain imaging techniques on human subjects for her project, “Structural and functional neuroplasticity of Parkinson’s disease following a sensori-motor contingent musical walking intervention (Ambulosono).” Her study will determine the effectiveness of a music-contingent walking exercise program as an intervention for Parkinson’s disease subjects. While many animal models are relied upon heavily in neuroscience studies, despite their limited translatability to human populations, using imaging techniques on human subjects to study neuroplasticity may replace conventional research which uses animals for this purpose.