Ole Kiehn is a Professor in Integrative Neuroscience at the Department of Neuroscience, University of Copenhagen, and a Professor in Neurophysiology at the Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet. Ole Kiehn earned his medical degree from the University of Copenhagen and his Doctorate of Science from the same institution. He conducted his postdoctoral work at Cornell University before returning to the University of Copenhagen as a group leader. In 2001, he was recruited to Karolinska Institutet, where he became a professor in 2004. Since 2016, he has held a position as a professor at the University of Copenhagen.

Kiehn’s research focuses on understanding the molecular, cellular, and functional organization of motor circuitries in mammals. This work links motor circuit organization to behavior and demonstrates translational potential in the development of therapies for movement disorders caused by trauma or disease. He is an elected member of Academia Europaea, EMBO, the Royal Swedish Academy of Science, and The Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. His research has been recognized with numerous honors including the Brain Prize 2022.

Title: Unraveling Brainstem Circuits for Movement: Insights into Motor Control and Implications for Treatment of Movement Disorders

Absrtact:

Movement is the output of almost all brain functions. Among movement, locomotion is one of the most fundamental and universal to animals and humans. Locomotion is organised at many levels of the nervous system, with brainstem circuits acting as the gate between brain areas regulating innate, emotional, or motivational locomotion and the executing spinal motor circuits. To be executed, locomotion requires dynamic initiation and termination and appropriate directionally. This lecture will focus on recent advances that have elucidated the functional organisation of brainstem command circuits in mammals needed to perform these roles. The lecture will also show how these brainstem circuits are linked to selection of movement in widespread brain networks implicated in diverse brain functions and how locomotor disturbances following e.g. basal ganglia disorders may be alleviated by targeted activation of brainstem command pathways.