Prof. Dr. Nicole Wenderoth
Prof. Dr. Nicole Wenderoth
Full Professor at the Department of Health Sciences and Technology
ETH Zürich
Additional information
Research area
Nicole Wenderoth’s key research interest is to understand the neural basis of human motor functions, the influence of brain damage and neurodegeneration on movement control, and how recovery can be facilitated by new interventions.
Her research aims at a significantly improved understanding of motor problems in patients recovering from stroke, suffering from Parkinson's disease, or with a developmental disorder like autism.
For many years, brain researchers aimed to assign specific motor functions to a specific brain area, often using overly simple tasks like pressing a button. However, daily life requires much more complex behaviour and humans can develop impressive proficiency in demanding skills like playing the piano.
Her group investigate how specialized areas of the human brain interact with each other in order to produce complex behaviour. They study complex movement production, skill acquisition and motor learning, action understanding and imitation, as well as recovery from neural damage and how to optimize rehabilitation in neurological patients. Brain activity is quantified by medical imaging methods and transcranial brain stimulation. The research of Nicole Wenderoth’s group involves healthy volunteers, neurological patients and appropriate animal models.
Nicole Wenderoth has been a Professor for Neural Control of Movement in the Department of Health Sciences and Technology, since 2012.
She was born in Essen, Germany, in 1970.
She earned a Master degree (Diplom) in Kinesiology, at the German Sport University in Cologne, Germany, in 1996. In the same year she got an Intermediate Diploma (Vordiplom) in Computer Science, from FernUniversität Hagen, Germany. She continued her studies in Kinesiology at the German Sport University to get a PhD in 2000.
From 2001 to 2006, she was a Postdoc at the Centre for Movement Control and Neuroplasticity of KU Leuven, Belgium.
In 2006 she became an Assistant and later Associate Professor (with a specific research assignment at the Centre for Movement Control and Neuroplasticity, in the Faculty of Movement and Rehabilitation Sciences of the above university.
Honours
| Year | Distinction |
|---|---|
| 2001 | European College of Sport Science: 1st prize of the Young Investigators Award (Poster Presentation), Cologne, Germany |
Course Catalogue
Spring Semester 2024
| Number | Unit |
|---|---|
| 376-0202-00L | Neural Control of Movement and Motor Learning |