I am a brain scientist interested in how the hand and brain function together. Born and raised in Canada, my academic training began at Western University. There, I studied psychology and physiology, and completed a PhD in Neuroscience. After four years of postdoctoral training in the United States, I joined Bangor University in 2015, where I lead my own research group. Our group uses various methods to characterise hand and brain function, and understand how they relate. Our purpose is to advance new knowledge of the functional interplay between the hand and brain and use this knowledge to improve the lives of others. Hand-nerve injury is one of the big problems we are currently focused on. We seek to better understand the brain changes that accompany traumatic injuries to the nerves of the hand and their significance for patient recovery.

I am a father and husband, and, like many Canadians, I love the game of hockey and enjoy the great outdoors.

Changes in the functional organisation of somatosensory cortex following surgical repair of the major nerves of the hand.
Our hands are the primary instruments by which we interact with the world, empowered by the nerves that bring to life our experience of touch, temperature, and pain. Injuries to the nerves of the hand are common, with significant and longstanding personal and societal costs. When hand-nerve injury happens in adulthood, impairments persist indefinitely. Nerve trauma is also known to change the brain, yet our understanding of these changes and their significance for patient recovery is poor. In this talk, I share findings from an ongoing project that aims to address these gaps in understanding. The project involves fMRI and behavioural testing of patients who have experienced traumatic lacerations and undergone surgical repairs of either or both the ulnar or median nerve(s). Our findings reveal significant changes in the spatial arrangement of digit responses in primary somatosensory cortex, consistent with predictions from animal models. Comparison of these measures against various markers of functional recovery reveals no clear relationships, however. Altogether, our data provide new understanding of the human brain’s capacity to reorganise following peripheral nerve injuries, yet how this relates to patient functional recovery remains unclear.