Neuroscience Ireland Conference 2025
Conference Speaker Profile
Prof. Charlie Stagg
University of Oxford,
United Kingdom
Talk Title
Revolutionising precise neuromodulation for human motor control
Talk Abstract
Recent advances in neuromodulation have revolutionized our ability to understand and influence human motor behaviour with unprecedented precision. In this talk, I will discuss these novel approaches and explore how their enhanced spatial and temporal specificity can be utilized to study the healthy human brain and develop potential stimulation techniques for individuals with neurological disorders.
I will present our recent work using transcranial ultrasound stimulation (tUS), which offers exceptional spatial precision. Additionally, I will highlight the value of closed-loop approaches employing transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS), both of which provide high temporal precision. I will then illustrate how we can leverage advanced neuroimaging to identify signatures of learning in the healthy brain and use these insights to design innovative, physiologically-informed approaches to enhance behaviour.
Finally, I will explore how these technological breakthroughs are reshaping our understanding of motor plasticity and discuss their potential applications in enhancing motor learning and, ultimately, rehabilitation.
Speaker Biography
Dr Charlotte (Charlie) Stagg is Professor of Human Neurophysiology in the Department of Clinical Neurosciences and the Beale Fellow in Medicine at St Hilda’s College, within the University of Oxford, UK.
Charlie initially trained in Physiology and Medicine at the University of Bristol. She completed her DPhil at the Oxford Centre for Functional MRI of the Brain (FMRIB), University of Oxford, where she used advanced neuroimaging and non-invasive brain stimulation approaches to study how the brain learns new motor skills. She was then awarded a Junior Research Fellowship at St Edmund Hall in Oxford, continuing to be based at FMRIB for her post-doctoral work, with research periods at University College London and the University of Miami, USA.
Charlie’s inter-disciplinary group was founded in 2014 and uses multi-modal neuroimaging and brain stimulation approaches to understand motor plasticity, both in the context of learning new motor skills and regaining function after a stroke. Her work has two overarching themes: to understand the mechanisms underpinning human motor learning, and to use that understanding to develop novel therapeutic approaches for acquired brain injuries. Her group’s work is funded by awards from the MRC, BBSRC, EPSRC and the Wellcome Trust.
Charlie lives in the Buckinghamshire countryside with her husband, their two children and the dogs.