Post 6:
Overall, these results suggest that effort perception could be an important factor driving bradykinesia in PD.

This was a really fun project to work on with an awesome team: @aaronlwong.bsky.social, @amandastherrien.bsky.social and Alyssa Eyssalenne.

Thank you!

Surprisingly, we did not observe a decreased sensitivity to reward value or a biased mapping between effort and reward in people with PD compared to controls. These results held when people with PD were ‘off’ dopamine medication.

Instead, PD increased the perception of effort relative to controls.

We tested if people with PD have:
1) a decreased perception of reward value using a reward utility task

2) an increased perception of effort using an isometric force matching task

3) a distorted mapping between effort and reward using decision-making task adapted from prior studies

The effort-reward trade-off is also important clinically as it has been proposed to underlie bradykinesia (low movement vigor) in PD.

But, there are at least 3 components of the trade-off that could plausibility explain these impairments. We tested each component in separate behavioral tasks.

All movements require a tradeoff between the effort required to move and the potential reward received for moving.
My favorite example of this trade-off is the way a child moves on Christmas morning compared to the morning of a big test at school.

I am very excited to share this new pre-print that we just posted on bioRxiv!

We tested individual components of the effort-reward trade-off in people with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and neurotypical controls and found some surprising results!

#neuroskyence #Sensorimotor #Neurorehabilitation

Dr. Rachana Gangwani presenting at #ASNR2026

Dr. Rachana Gangwani presenting at #ASNR2026

Dr. Rachana Gangwani is providing a great overview Symposium 1 at #ASNR2026. The field has often assessed and treated motor and cognitive domains separately, but it's critical to recognize how these domains intersect and interact in order to advance our science and best serve patients.

Really excited to get stared on this project!

We are also looking for a postdoc to help with this project - the official job ad is coming soon, but please reach out in the meanwhile if interested! You'll get to do some behavioral testing and neuroimaging in people with stroke

Precision of reaches and proprioception in motor control and adaptation - Discover Neuroscience How do precision of movement and proprioception influence motor control and adaptation? Several theories—such as the exploration-exploitation hypothesis—propose that variability plays a key role in mo...

1/8 Paper! Using previously published data from 270 participants, we look at precision of reaches and hand proprioception in rotation adaptation:
doi.org/10.1186/s130...

The basal ganglia output is often framed as a motor gate: corticostriatal circuits select an action, then GPi/SNr-thalamus helps release it. In humans, we find this same pathway carries cognitive variables embedded in movement signals—and even produces learning-relevant signals after feedback. 1/10

While preparing your #NCMKobe26 abstract, read through the highlights from #NCMPan25! The meeting highlight article is now available for review.

Thank you to some of the scholarship winners from 2025 for putting the article together.

journals.physiology....

@aaronlwong.bsky.social @laurelbuxbaum.bsky.social & @sthibault.bsky.social found that incongruence between tool & hand motions may exacerbate competition between motions of the hand & tool. Resolving this competition is challenging for people with #LimbApraxia.

👉 pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40925673/

Congratulations to Postdoctoral Fellow, @jonathanwood603.bsky.social, & mentors @aaronlwong.bsky.social & @amandastherrien.bsky.social on receiving a prestigious NIH/NICHD F32 award for their project, “The role of subjective values and dopamine availability in incentive-based motor learning”!

In our recent Shrier Family Topics in Rehabilitation Science Seminar, @jonathanwood603.bsky.social presented his research on movement vigor and the effort/reward tradeoff in people with Parkinson’s disease🧠🔄

His presentation is now available on our YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4s49...

The logo for the Society for the Neural Control of Movement log and NCM 2025 banner appear at the top of the image. There is a photo of Dr. Wood below on the left. On the right, the text reads, "Session 13, Individual III, OS3.2: Determining the cognitive contributions to reduced movement vigor in people with Parkinson’s disease, Jonathan Wood, PhD Friday, May 2, 2025 | 10:30 am - 12:30 pm, Jefferson Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute."

If you're attending the Neural Control of Movement Conference, join jonathanwood603.bsky.social for his oral presentation—"Determining the cognitive contributions to reduced movement vigor in people with Parkinson’s disease"—on Friday, May 2nd (10:30–12:30PM)

🧠🔄 🧠📈 #ParkinsonsDisease #NCM2025

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

New paper alert in NNR @asnrehab.bsky.social !

Q: Does stroke impact motor adaptation—our ability to correct motor errors through feedback and practice?

A: Based on our meta-analysis involving 21 datasets & 283 patients with stroke, we found that stroke has a detrimental effect on adaptation.

This is a screenshot showing the journal's name, the title of the article, and the authors

Check out this recent commentary from @jonathanwood603.bsky.social and @aaronlwong.bsky.social. They highlight the important role of subjective perceptions of effort in movement and decisions.
🧠🔄 🧠📈 🧪

journals.physiology.org/doi/epdf/10....

Check out my new podcast! (Ive always wanted to say that). It's a short summary of my recent paper looking at two different motor learning processes after stroke.

#Neurorehabilitation #neuroskyence

www.podbean.com/ew/pb-w5ys9-...

Thanks @aaronlwong.bsky.social I had fun writing this one!

Subjective perception of effort affects the way we move | Journal of Neurophysiology

. @jonathanwood603.bsky.social and I wrote a thing! A brief commentary on the importance of considering subjective factors when trying to understand behaviors like decisions about effort exertion journals.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Reinforcement learning during locomotion When learning a new motor skill, people often must use trial and error to discover which movement is best. In the reinforcement learning framework, this concept is known as exploration and has been li...

Hi everyone!
I have new publication in eNeuro where we determined that reinforcement learning can be used during human locomotion.
 
Thanks to my co-authors @HyosubKim and Susanne M. Morton
 
#neuroskyence
 
www.eneuro.org/content/earl...

Explicit and implicit locomotor learning in individuals with chronic hemiparetic stroke bioRxiv - the preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution

Which specific motor learning processes are impaired post-stroke? Check out our new preprint!
 
#neurorehabilitation #neuroscience #compneuro
 
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The method, a 2AFC task, uses a Bayesian adaptive algorithm to improve efficiency, and achieved reliable lower limb position sense estimates in 50 trials! It should serve as a useful tool for gait and balance researchers who need to estimate static lower limb position sense.

A reliable and efficient adaptive Bayesian method to assess static lower limb position sense Lower limb proprioception is critical for maintaining stability during gait and may impact how individuals modify their movements in response to chang…

Earlier this year, myself Hyosub Kim and Susanne Morton published a paper that tested the reliability of a novel method to assess static lower limb position sense while standing on a split-belt treadmill.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I am a physical therapist and postdoctoral research fellow. I am interested in motor learning and motor control in neurologic diseases like Parkinson's.

I look forward to sharing my work!

Hello all!

I enjoy playing sports (soccer, golf, and tennis) and I like fantasy/sci-fi stories like harry potter star wards, and lord of the rings.