Dorothy Barthélemy
Associate Professor
Physical Therapy
The first objective of Dr. Barthélemy's research is to identify the nature of neuronal interactions within the central nervous system that enables balance control during standing or gait in healthy individuals. The second objective is to assess changes in mechanisms underlying balance control following a lesion to the central nervous system such as a stroke or a spinal cord injury. Dr. Barthélemy's laboratory features a comprehensive approach to studying balance and gait by combining various neurophysiological techniques, including electrical stimulation of peripheral nerves, galvanic vestibular stimulation, and non-invasive brain stimulation. There the team assess neuronal networks while participants are involved in different tasks such as maintaining balance on a moveable platform, walking on a split-belt treadmill or performing isometric muscular contraction with the upper or lower limbs. They further evaluate the performance of participants during each task using different biomechanical approaches such as surface electromyography, force measurements, and 3-D full-body motion analysis.
