• Biography

After her PhD at the University Lyon1, Ursula moved as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Pisa (2009), and Brussels (2010), where she pursued several investigations on motor imagery practice and consolidation during sleep. Then, she obtained a Chaire d’Excellence Junior at the University Paris Descartes (2011-2013), and worked on the effect of cognitive remediation in both normal and pathological aging. She moved at the University of Geneva with a Cofund Marie Curie grant (2013-2016), and conducted an extended project on the effect of motor imagery practice during arm immobilisation. Since 2016, Ursula is lecturer at the University Claude Bernard Lyon1, and she was named at the Institut Universitaire de France as a Junior member in 2020.

Ursula’s research concerns the neuroplasticity process that mediates the acquisition and consolidation of new motor skills, and compensates for the loss of motor functions. The current challenge to modulate neural plasticity for optimal and long-term behavioral gain is possible through cost effective and easy feasible approaches. Among these, motor imagery i.e. mental representation of movement without any motor output, and brain stimulation have been shown as effective and non-invasive approaches that modulate brain plasticity. The research projects conduce by Ursula are dedicated to better understand the mechanisms that underpin brain plasticity induced by motor imagery and brain stimulation (alone or combined), and their effects on motor performance in both motor learning and limb-immobilization. Following these conditions, Ursula explore the consolidation process of memory, especially during sleep. Her research also contributes to determine the optimal conditions and rules of motor imagery practice, hence improving the effectiveness of interventions. In November 2020, she published 30 scientific articles (25 signed in significant authorship position).

Ursula Debarnot (ursula.debarnot @ univ-lyon1.fr)

Institution

Université Claude Bernard

(Lyon 1)

Team: [MP3]

Position 

Associate Professor

Publications