Sanne Kikkert Email and Phone Number

The ability to sense through touch is fundamental to actively interact with our environment. If we lose such sensory information through injury (e.g., spinal cord injury or limb loss), our brains are deprived of a major source of input, and we are required to use novel motor strategies. My team’s research aims at exploring how human brains are affected by such changes, what neural mechanisms may underlie resulting neural reorganisation, and how the human brain responds to sensory reinstatement through neuroprosthetics. A large body of our research focuses on exploring the brainstem as a key hub in brain plasticity, a structure that has been largely overlooked in human brain plasticity research. To do so, we merge cutting-edge functional and structural neuroimaging techniques. Our findings are expected to provide fundamental insights into human brain plasticity that may ultimately be used to guide desirable plasticity, discourage maladaptive plasticity, and better tailor treatments based on individual differences.

In my research I use fMRI to investigate how the adult human brain changes or stays remarkably stable following a spinal cord injury. In particular, I focus on body-part representations in the somatosensory cortex and at the brainstem level.

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My PhD research focused on how the adult brain, and in specific primary sensorimotor cortex, changes following a loss of sensory in- and motor output. In my research I use 3 tesla and 7 tesla fMRI, as well as non-invasive brain stimulation (tDCS).

* Guiding a group of students in discussing relevant literature for a course. * Tutored courses: memory, critical thinking, sensation and perception, history and bases of psychology.