Faculty

Ya-Weng Tseng
P.T., Ph.D.

Dr. Tseng received her MS and PhD from the University of Delaware, and her BS in Physical

Therapy from National Taiwan University. She then completed a NIH post-doctoral fellowship in neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Dr. Tseng’s research interests include normal and abnormal motor control; motor adaptation and motor learning for healthy people and those with neurologic injuries or diseases. In particular, she is interested in understanding differences in motor skills between the dominant and non-dominant arms during reaching and drawing tasks. These tasks require either the use of one arm or both arms simultaneously. Dr. Tseng has studied how biomechanical factors affect coordination differently for each arm given their differences in motor skills and how people can perform complicated bimanual movements despite those differences. She and collaborators have identified that the primary advantage in the dominant arm’s coordination strategies is its ability to utilize flexible movement patterns while limiting those that will lead to errors in motor performance.  Although the non-dominant arm demonstrates similar characteristics of coordination, it is less able to reduce the unwanted movement patterns that cause movement errors, especially in the more challenging situations (e.g., when moving very fast, reaching with higher accuracy requirements, or encountering additional mechanical forces).

Recently, Dr. Tseng has also begun to investigate the neural mechanisms of movement disorders. She focuses on the effect of cerebellar diseases and stroke on people’s motor adaptation ability, i.e., the ability to calibrate and adjust motor commands based on a constantly changing body (fatigue, aging) and environment (interaction with object, unexpected perturbation). The ability to adapt indicates flexibility in the control of movements and significant consequences occur when people’s adaptive ability is not optimal (e.g. not adapting the walking pattern leads to falls on ice; not adapting reaching with a hot cup of coffee leads to spills). Healthy people are often unaware of this quick adjustment of motor actions whereas people with neurologic deficits often lose part of their adaptive capacity. This is especially true for those with cerebellar dysfunctions, resulting in debilitating conditions. Her current work is trying to understand whether optimizing maneuvers exist, such as providing effective visual feedback, in order to maximize their residual adaptive ability.  In this way, these individuals will better benefit from practice and rehabilitation training, further enhancing their chance of functional independence.

Selected publications:

• Tseng Y.W., Diedrichsen J., Krakauer J.W., Shadmehr R., & Bastian A.J. (2007). Sensory prediction errors drive cerebellum-dependent adaptation of reaching. Journal of Neurophysiology, 98 (1), 54-62.
• Tseng Y.W., Scholz J.P., & Martin, V. (2006). Effect of frequency scaling and arm dynamics on joint coordination underlying the control of circle-drawing. Journal of Motor Behavior, 38 (5), 383-404.
• Tseng Y.W., & Scholz J.P. (2005). Unilateral vs. bilateral coordination of circle-drawing tasks. Acta Psychologica, 120 (2), 172-198.
• Tseng Y.W., & Scholz J.P. (2005). Effect of workspace on the use of joint redundancy. Motor Control, 9 (1), 75-100.
• Tseng Y.W., Scholz J.P., Schöner G. & Hotchkiss L. (2003). Effect of accuracy constraints on goal-equivalent joint coordination for reaching. Experimental Brain Research, 149 (3), 276-288.
• Tseng Y.W., Scholz J.P., & Schöner G. (2002). Goal-equivalent joint coordination in pointing: Effect of vision and arm dominance. Motor Control, 6 (2), 183-207