Denise Henriques
deniseyph.bsky.social
Denise Henriques
@deniseyph.bsky.social
Sensorimotor neuroscientist and professor at York University.
https://deniseh.lab.yorku.ca/
Reposted by Denise Henriques
Reposted by Denise Henriques
🌟 Excited to share that I'm recruiting PhD students in Psychology for my new lab at Rice University this cycle (Signal boost appreciated!)

To learn more, check out the Learning & Behavior Change Lab website:
www.sinclairlab-rice.com

Applications are due Dec 1st: psychology.rice.edu/graduate/pro...
Sinclair Lab
The Learning & Behavior Change Lab at Rice University, directed by Dr. Sinclair
www.sinclairlab-rice.com
September 8, 2025 at 3:45 PM
After starting my sabbatical this past July, I have finalized and posted 5 preprints on biorxiv.
September 8, 2025 at 7:20 PM
Program is now available and registration is still open for those who want to join us.
June 6, 2025 at 8:33 PM
Reposted by Denise Henriques
There are more conditions tested in the paper here: doi.org/10.1152/jn.0... And we'd welcome feedback and comments!
Visual properties of action consequences and not environments affect context-specific motor learning | Journal of Neurophysiology | American Physiological Society
The human motor system can adapt to perturbations by updating existing internal models of motor control or by creating context-specific motor memories or strategies that can be flexibly activated or deactivated. Using a virtual target-directed ball rolling task, we investigate if motor learning is context specific when perturbations are applied to either the throw direction of a ball, or the acceleration of the ball post-release. Additionally, by altering the visual slant of the task surface in an immersive virtual-reality environment, we determine if informative visual cues that predict visual perturbations to expected action consequences affect the propensity for context-specific motor learning. Our findings reveal that perturbations resembling post-throw accelerations enable flexible, context-specific motor adaptation regardless of the presence of the visual slant cues. Perturbations in the throw directions, conversely, lead to the updating of existing internal models. Additionally, we find fast implicit visual-context-specific changes in performance during early learning and context switching. Our findings underscore the role of visual properties of both perturbations and environments in flexible and generalizable motor learning. Data and analysis scripts available at https://osf.io/a5nv3/.
doi.org
March 17, 2025 at 7:36 PM
Reposted by Denise Henriques
We then tested if learning was context-specific by measuring rates of decay after the perturbation was removed. Accelerations led to much faster decay, compared to rotated.
March 17, 2025 at 7:36 PM
Reposted by Denise Henriques
Specifically, participants rolled a ball toward targets on a surface that naturally simulated acceleration effects. Surface slant could explain the perturbation, and so serve as a visual environmental cue.

2/6
March 17, 2025 at 7:36 PM
Reposted by Denise Henriques
Shanaa (not on blue sky) published the last paper from his PhD projects in Journal of Neurophysiology!

In this paper, he used immersive virtual reality to examine motor memory formation and motor adaptation with more natural perturbations.

1/6
March 17, 2025 at 7:36 PM
Come check out the work of my trainees this morning at #SfN23. HH15, GG17, GG15, GG19, HH2.
November 13, 2023 at 12:33 PM
Reposted by Denise Henriques
Anyone looking for a postdoc in sensorimotor neuroscience focused on NHP ephys? Reach out, could meet at SfN. www.pruszynskilab.com | www.superlab.ca | www.compere.ca
November 9, 2023 at 12:44 AM