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Staines, Richard

Richard Stainesphoto

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Research:

Dr. Staines’ research interests focus on understanding: 1) how the brain interprets, adapts to and integrates sensory inputs to guide motor behaviour, and 2) how these processes are affected by and can contribute to recovery from brain injury.  The long-term objective is to use this knowledge to formulate strategies targeted at enhancing neural adaptations to improve motor behaviour and lessen disability following stroke.

Our ability to produce coordinated movement to interact with our environment is often driven by the analysis of continuous sensory information from multiple sources. While much attention has been directed to the neural control of voluntary movement and visuomotor behaviours, very little is known about how multimodal sensory information is integrated with proprioceptive feedback of limb position in the brain. Yet these interrelationships are critical in understanding the neurophysiology of human motor control. Dr. Staines’ research program focuses on understanding how the CNS integrates sensory information from multiple input sources and transforms this sensory information to appropriate motor commands.

Understanding of recovery processes following brain injury from stroke is still relatively underdeveloped and there is a pressing need for new innovative approaches to improve rehabilitation in order to promote recovery and lessen disability.  Dr. Staines’ research integrates state-of-the-art neuroimaging and neurophysiological techniques in healthy and brain-injured populations to understand the physiological substrates of recovery from brain injury due to stroke.  Specifically, Dr. Staines’ lab studies mechanisms in the human CNS that are responsible for controlling movement and for adaptations due to learning and injury. 

Dr. Staines is a core scientist in the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario’s Centre for Stroke Recovery at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.

Key Publications:

  1. Meehan SK, Stanes, WR. Task-relevence and temporal synchrony between tactile and visual stimulus modulates cortical activity and motor performance during sensory-guided movement. Human Brain Mapping, 30 (2009) 484-496
  2. Meehan SK, Legon W, Staines WR. Paired-pulse TMS of primary somatosensory cortex differentially modulates perception and sensorimotor transformations. Neuroscience, 157 (2008) 424-431.
  3. Staines WR, Black SE, Graham SJ, McIlroy WE.  Somatosensory gating and recovery from stroke involving the thalamus. Stroke, 33 (2002) 2642-2651.
  4. Staines WR, Graham SJ, Black SE, McIlroy WE.  Task-relevant modulation of primary somatosensory cortex is mediated through a prefrontal-cortical sensory gating system. Neuroimage, 15 (2002) 190-199.
  5. Staines WR, McIlroy WE, Graham SJ, Black SE. Bilateral movement enhances ipsilesional cortical activity in acute stroke: a pilot fMRI study. Neurology, 56 (2001) 401-404.