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Control of Movement

Combining neuroimaging, neuromodulation and computational modelling of sensorimotor networks, the Control of Movement (CoMo) group studies how the brain orchestrates movements.

Volitional control of actions

The brain constitutes a sophisticated “machinery” for selecting and performing those movements that are most appropriate given the behavioral context. We are particularly interested in clarifying the specific role of the motor cortex and basal ganglia.

Basal ganglia and sequential finger movements

Our group employs task-based functional MRI to map brain activity during motor tasks. In young individuals, we found that discrete finger sequences are widely represented in human striatum (Andersen et al., 2020). Specific sequences could be discriminated based on the distributed activity patterns in left and right striatum, but not by average differences in single-voxel activity. Multiple bilateral clusters in putamen and caudate nucleus belonging to motor, associative, parietal and limbic territories contributed to classification sensitivity. Our findings suggest that the basal ganglia integrate motor, associative and limbic aspects in the control of sequential overlearned behaviour. 

Use-dependent representational plasticity of the motor cortex

Our group uses structural MRI and neuronavigated TMS mapping of the hand representation of the motor cortex to study use-dependent cortical plasticity. In a recent study, we showed that immobilization and motor practice act in synergy to increase skilled motor performance and bring about changes in the cortical motor representation of hand muscles (Raffin & Siebner 2019).

Uncovering structure-function relationships in the motor hand knob

The motor representations of the hand are located in a characteristic knob-like structure in the precentral gyrus, called the precentral motor hand knob (Dubbioso et al., 2021). We combined structural and functional MRI of the motor hand knob with neuronavigated TMS mapping of cortico-muscular  representations of hand mucles. We found that the cortical myelin content of the M1-HAND predicts the localization of the muscle presentations in the precentral hand knob. The myelin content also correlated positively with the temporal precision of finger tapping movements. This is the first study to show that myelination of the precentral motor cortex is tightly coupled with the cortical control of the hand.

How we work

The Control of Movement group is headed by Postdoc Lasse Christiansen. The group adopts a triple-M approach to decipher the causal neuro-dynamics in sensorimotor brain networks by combining multimodal brain MAPPING with computational MODELLING and non-invasive MODULATION of sensorimotor networks.

The Control of Movement group meets every week to discuss new findings in movement neuroscience and relate these findings to  our own research.

The Control of Movement group closely interacts with the NeuroPhysics, Brain Network Modulation, Computational Neuroimaging, and Movement Disorders groups. From 2011 to 2016, the group was called Control-of-Action or “ContAct” group and was funded by a large grant from the Lundbeck Foundation who awarded a “Grant of Excellence” to Hartwig Siebner. Additional funding was granted by the Danish Research Council for Independent Research. 

Selected Publications

Marie Trolle Bonnesen, Søren Asp Fuglsang, Hartwig Roman Siebner, Lasse Christiansen. Corticospinal excitability is influenced by the recent history of electrical digital stimulation: implications for the relative magnitude of short-latency afferent inhibition. BioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.02.02.478861; this version posted February 4, 2022.

Janine Kesselheim, Mitsuaki Takemi, Lasse Christiansen, Anke Ninija Karabanov, Hartwig Roman Siebner. Multi-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation of human motor cortex produces short latency corticomotor facilitation via two distinct mechanisms. bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.02.19.481138; this version posted February 22, 2022.

Dubbioso, R., Madsen, K. H., Thielscher, A., & Siebner, H. R. (2021). The Myelin Content of the Human Precentral Hand Knob Reflects Interindividual Differences in Manual Motor Control at the Physiological and Behavioral Level. Journal of Neuroscience, 41(14), 3163-3179.

Andersen, Kasper Winther, Kristoffer H. Madsen, and Hartwig Roman Siebner. "Discrete finger sequences are widely represented in human striatum." Scientific Reports 10.1 (2020): 1-12.

Dogonowski AM, Andersen KW, Sellebjerg F, Schreiber K, Madsen KH, Siebner HR (2019) Functional neuroimaging of recovery from motor conversion disorder: A case report. Neuroimage 190:269-74.

Karabanov AN, Irmen F, Madsen KH, Haagensen BN, Schulze S, Bisgaard T, Siebner HR (2019) Getting to grips with endoscopy - Learning endoscopic surgical skills induces bi-hemispheric plasticity of the grasping network. Neuroimage 189:32-44.

Maigaard K, Nejad AB, Andersen KW, Herz DM, Hagstrøm J, Pagsberg AK, Skov L, Siebner HR*, Plessen KJ* (2019) A superior ability to suppress fast inappropriate responses in children with Tourette syndrome is further improved by prospect of reward. Neuropsychologia 131:342-52. * Both authors contributed equally to the paper.

Raffin E, Siebner HR (2019) Use-dependent plasticity in human primary motor hand area: Synergistic interplay between training and immobilization. Cereb Cortex 29:356-71.

Dubbioso, R., Raffin, E., Karabanov, A., Thielscher, A. & Siebner, H. R. Centre-surround organization of fast sensorimotor integration in human motor hand area. NeuroImage. 158, p. 37-47, 2017.

Karabanov, A. N., Ritterband-Rosenbaum, A., Christensen, M. S., Siebner, H. R. & Nielsen, J. B. Modulation of fronto-parietal connections during the rubber hand illusion. European Journal of Neuroscience. 45, 7, p. 964-974, 2017.

Andersen, K. W., Madsen, K. H. & Siebner, H. R. Rock-paper-scissors - Hand gestures show multivariate pattern representations in the human brain. 2017.

Angstmann, S., Madsen, K. S., Skimminge, A., Jernigan, T. L., Baaré, W. F. C. & Siebner, H. R. Microstructural asymmetry of the corticospinal tracts predicts right-left differences in circle drawing skill in right-handed adolescents. Brain structure & function.

Gelskov, S. V., Henningsson, S., Madsen, K. H., Siebner, H. R. & Ramsøy, T. Z. Amygdala signals subjective appetitiveness and aversiveness of mixed gambles. Cortex. 66, p. 81-90, 2015.

Meder, D., Haagensen, B. N., Hulme, O., Morville, T., Gelskov, S., Herz, D. M., Diomsina, B., Madsen, K. H., Siebner, H. Tuning the Brake while Raising the Stake: Network Dynamics during Sequential Decision-Making.  Journal of Neuroscience, 136, 36, p. 5417-5426, 2016.

Meder, D., Madsen, K. H., Hulme, O., Siebner, H. R. Chasing probabilities — Signaling negative and positive prediction errors across domains. Neuroimage, 134, 19, p.  180-191, 2016.

Raffin, E., Pellegrino, G., Di Lazzaro, V., Thielscher, A. & Siebner, H. R. Bringing transcranial mapping into shape: Sulcus-aligned mapping captures motor somatotopy in human primary motor hand area. NeuroImage. 120, p. 164-175, 2015.

Stanek, K.  Inferring human intentions from the brain data. PhD-Thesis. Technical University of Denmark, Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark,  2016.

Group Members

Lasse Christiansen

Group Leader

Hartwig R. Siebner

David Meder

Show all group members (19)

External Collaborators

PostDoc Estelle Raffin

Fonctions Cérébrales et Neuromodulation, Université Joseph Fourier & Inserm, U836, Grenoble Institut des Neurosciences, Grenoble, France


Prof. Olivier David

Fonctions Cérébrales et Neuromodulation, Université Joseph Fourier & Inserm, U836, Grenoble Institut des Neurosciences, Grenoble, France


Assoc. Prof. Mark Schram Christensen

Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, University of Copenhagen and Department of Neuroscience and Pharmacology, University of Copenhagen.


Prof.  Jens Bo Nielsen

Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, University of Copenhagen and Department of Neuroscience and Pharmacology, University of Copenhagen.


Prof. Torsten Dau

Hearing Systems Group, Department of Electrical Engineering,Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark