Impairments in motor-cognitive behavior

Decision Making in Motor Cognition:
Is my cup of coffee within reach? Action planning includes decisions about whether such movements are at all possible. Cues in the environment, but also knowledge about our own bodily capabilities play an important role (so called perception of affordances). Action and perception processes must interact to perform these decisions. We would like to study whether and how cognitive decline and/or bodily changes due to aging or sudden paralysis may affect these abilities.
DFG Funded: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/438470816

Tool Use:
Every day we use many tools and objects. Brain damage for example may disturb the integration of acquired knowledge about tools and objects into an action plan. As a result it occurs as if the patients with so called limb apraxia lost their knowledge about how to properly select and use tools and objects. This affects approximately one third of stroke patients yearly. The disorder is a strong determinant in the dependence on help with activities of daily living.

We aim to refine assessments and develop rehabilitation approaches, please follow the link for manuals and materials: https://www.moco.uni-konstanz.de/en/publications/assessments/

Currently, we are interested in developing a concept of assessing and training competencies of using digital tools, which highly likely are significantly affected by brain damage.

References from the project “Impairments in Motor Cognitive Behavior”:

Affordance Judgments:
Finkel, L., Engler, S., & Randerath, J. (2019). Does it fit? – Trainability of affordance judgments in young and older adults. PloS one, 14(2), e0212709.

Gölz, M. S., Finkel, L., Kehlbeck, R., Herschbach, A., Bauer, I., Scheib, J. P., Deussen, O., & Randerath, J. (2023). From virtual to physical environments when judging action opportunities: are diagnostics and trainings transferable? Virtual Reality, 1-19.

Randerath, J., Finkel, L., Shigaki, C., Burris, J., Nanda, A., Hwang, P., & Frey, S. H. (2020). Is this within reach? Left but not right brain damage affects affordance judgment tendencies. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 14, 561.

Randerath, J., & Frey, S. H. (2015). Diagnostics and Training of Affordance Perception in Healthy Young Adults-Implications for Post-Stroke Neurorehabilitation. Front Hum Neurosci, 9, 674. doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00674

Tool Use:
Buchmann, I., Dangel, M., Finkel, L., Jung, R., Makhkamova, I., Binder, A., Dettmers, C., Herrmann, L., Liepert, J., Moller, J. C., Richter, G., Vogler, T., Wolf, C., & Randerath, J. (2020). Limb apraxia profiles in different clinical samples. Clin Neuropsychol, 34(1), 217-242. doi.org/10.1080/13854046.2019.1585575

Buchmann, I., Finkel, L., Dangel, M., Erz, D., Maren Harscher, K., Kaupp-Merkle, M., Liepert, J., Rockstroh, B., & Randerath, J. (2020). A combined therapy for limb apraxia and related anosognosia. Neuropsychol Rehabil, 30(10), 2016-2034. doi.org/10.1080/09602011.2019.1628075

Buchmann, I., Jung, R., Liepert, J., & Randerath, J. (2018). Assessing Anosognosia in Apraxia of Common Tool-Use With the VATA-NAT. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 12, 119.

Buchmann, I., & Randerath, J. (2017). Selection and application of familiar and novel tools in patients with left and right hemispheric stroke: Psychometrics and normative data. Cortex, 94, 49-62.