David Engel

Short info

Humans are able to maintain their upright posture in a myriad of conditions mainly through the interplay between their visual, vestibular and proprioceptive systems. Out of those inputs and their sensory processing, vision seems to be the main contributor. My current work primarily involves how our body reacts to the visual system encountering pertubations, which are presented in a virtual-reality environment. There are indications that subjects adapt their naturally occuring body sway during quiet standing to an oscillatory perturbation of their visual sorround in a resonating fashion. Given these responses, I want to gain novel insight into visuomotor control in humans. I am also particularly interested in how neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinson's disease affect these mechanisms.

I am working under the supervision of Prof. Bremmer.

Articles

Engel, D., Student, J., Schwenk, J. C., Morris, A. P., Waldthaler, J., Timmermann, L., & Bremmer, F. (2021).
Visual perturbation of balance suggests impaired motor control but intact visuomotor processing in Parkinson’s disease.
Journal of Neurophysiology, 126(4), 1076-1089.

Student J, Engel D, Timmermann L, Bremmer F, Waldthaler J (2022).
Visual Perturbation Suggests Increased Effort to Maintain Balance in Early Stages of Parkinson’s to be an Effect of Age Rather Than Disease.
Front. Hum. Neurosci. 16:762380.