Associate Prof Liz Franz, of the University of Otago psychology department, is "extremely excited" to have gained a $924,000 grant from the prestigious Marsden Fund to study movement control disorders in humans.
Prof Franz, who will lead the research, is grateful not only to receive the funding over three years, but also to be able to undertake this study, which involves "enormous questions", including about genetic mechanisms.
Her Otago multidisciplinary research collaborators are Prof Stephen Robertson, Adjunct Prof Mac Gardner and anatomy senior lecturer Dr Christine Jasoni.
A certain party trick requires you to rub your tummy at the same time as patting your head.
Some people find this easy and others cannot do it at all.
The processes underlying such "independent dexterity" are not well understood.
"There's very little known about the actual mechanism," Prof Franz says.
Some people have a hereditary disorder where that independent dexterity of the hands and fingers is lost.
Losing such dexterity meant doing up shoelaces and some other daily tasks could become problematic.
"You're going to have difficulties in your everyday life."
Difficulties with such dexterity are also experienced by some patients who have had strokes and by some people with cerebral palsy.
The researchers will look at how the brain is wired in an extended family with hereditary congenital mirror movements (CMMs). When people with CMMs move the fingers or hand on one side, the opposite fingers or hand also move unintentionally.
This gives an ideal opportunity to investigate genetic control of brain wiring.
The researchers will use non-invasive brain mapping methods and detailed clinical analyses. They will also look for the gene responsible for these mirror movements. This study has the potential to identify new regeneration therapies following brain damage such as stroke, or developmental abnormality such as cerebral palsy.
Prof Franz said this fundamental research amounted to a "huge" first step, and its implications were likely to be "very widespread".
Prof Franz is one of 26 Otago University principal investigators to have gained grants totalling $17.8 million in the latest annual Marsden funding round.
