How does the coordinated activity of millions of neurons lead to human cognition and behaviour? My work tries to answer this question by looking at the motor system in healthy human subjects and patients with movement disorders. I use techniques such as magneto-encephalography (MEG), electro-encephalography (EEG), electro-myography (EMG), and local field potentials (LFP) measured by deep brain stimulation electrodes to study how synchronized neural activity leads to movement in healthy subjects and abnormal movement in Parkinson's disease.

In addition to this experimental work, I have a strong methodological interest. I have some expertise in graph theory to describe the structure of complex networks and I am contributing to the development of dynamic causal modelling to infer (synaptic) connectivity underlying experimental recordings.

I completed my PhD in November 2012 at the VU University Amsterdam under supervision of Prof. Andreas Daffertshofer. Please email me if you are interested in receiving a copy of my thesis Neural synchronization within and between regions of the motor system.

After my PhD I moved to London to work with Dr. Vladimir Litvak on cross-frequency coupling. Here I looked at simultaneous MEG and LFP recordings from the subthalamic nucleus in Parkinson's disease patients. I then continued this line of work as a postdoc within the research group of Prof. Andrea Kühn at the Charité in Berlin.

In 2018, I returned to Amsterdam as a Marie Curie Research Fellow within the Integrative Model-based Cognitive Neuroscience Research Unit led by Prof. Birte Forstmann at the University of Amsterdam. Currently, I am based again at the Department of Human Movement Sciences at the VU University Amsterdam.

For my full CV see here.

Publications

van Wijk BCM, Alkemade A, Forstmann BU (2020). Functional segregation and integration within the human subthalamic nucleus from a micro- and meso-level perspective. Cortex 131:103-113. PDF

Espenhahn S, Rossiter HE, van Wijk BCM, Redman N, Rondina JM, Diedrichsen J, Ward NS (2020). Motor cortex beta oscillations reflect motor skill learning ability after stroke. Brain Communications 2:fcaa161. PDF

Scheller U, Lofredi R, van Wijk BCM, Saryyeva A, Krauss JK, Schneider G-H, Kroneberg D, Krause P, Neumann W-J, Kühn AA (2019). Pallidal low-frequency activity in dystonia after cessation of long-term deep brain stimulation. Movement Disorders 34: 1734-1739. PDF

Espenhahn S, van Wijk BCM, Rossiter HE, de Berker AO, Redman ND, Rondina J, Diedrichsen J, Ward NS (2019). Cortical beta oscillations are associated with motor performance following visuomotor learning. Neuroimage 195:340-353. PDF

Reis C, Sharott A, Magill PJ, van Wijk BCM, Parr T, Zeidman P, Friston KJ, Cagnan H (2019). Thalamocortical dynamics underlying spontaneous transitions in beta power in Parkinsonism. Neuroimage 193:103-114. PDF

Meidahl AC, Moll CKE, van Wijk BCM, Gulberti A, Tinkhauser G, Westphal M, Engel AK, Hamel W, Brown P, Sharott A (2019). Synchronised spiking activity underlies phase amplitude coupling in the subthalamic nucleus of Parkinson's disease patients. Neurobiology of Disease 127:101-113. PDF

van Wijk BCM, Cagnan H, Litvak V, Kühn AA, Friston KJ (2018). Generic dynamic causal modelling: An illustrative application to Parkinson's disease. Neuroimage 181:818-830. PDF

van Wijk BCM (2017). Is broadband gamma activity pathologically synchronized to the beta rhythm in Parkinson's disease? The Journal of Neuroscience 37:9347-9349. PDF

van Wijk BCM, Neumann W-J, Schneider G-H, Sander TH, Litvak V, Kühn AA (2017). Low-beta cortico-pallidal coherence decreases during movement and correlates with overall reaction time. Neuroimage 159:1-8. PDF

van Wijk BCM, Pogosyan A, Hariz MI, Akram H, Foltynie T, Limousin P, Horn A, Ewert S, Brown P, Litvak V (2017). Localization of beta and high-frequency oscillations within the subthalamic nucleus region. Neuroimage: Clinical 16:175-183. PDF

Espenhahn SE, de Berker AO, van Wijk BCM, Rossiter HE, Ward NS (2017). Movement-related beta oscillations show high intra-individual reliability. Neuroimage 147:175-185. PDF

van Wijk BCM, Beudel M, Jha A, Oswal A, Foltynie T, Hariz MI, Limousin P, Zrinzo L, Aziz TZ, Green AL, Brown P, Litvak V (2016). Subthalamic nucleus phase-amplitude coupling correlates with motor impairment in Parkinson's disease. Clinical Neurophysiology 127:2010-9. PDF

Friston KJ, Litvak V, Oswal A, Razi A, Stephan KE, van Wijk BCM, Ziegler G, Zeidman P (2015). Bayesian model reduction and empirical Bayes for group (DCM) studies. Neuroimage 128:413-431. PDF

van Wijk BCM, Jha A, Penny W, Litvak V (2015). Parametric estimation of cross-frequency coupling. Journal of Neuroscience Methods 243:94-102. PDF

Friston KJ, Bastos AM, Oswal A, van Wijk B, Richter C, Litvak V (2014). Granger causality revisited. Neuroimage 101:796-808. PDF

van Wijk BCM, FitzGerald THB (2014). Thalamo-cortical cross-frequency coupling detected with MEG. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 8:187. PDF

Boersma M, de Bie HMA, Oostrom KJ, van Dijk BW, Hillebrand A, van Wijk BCM, Delemarre-van de Waal HA, Stam CJ (2013). Resting-state oscillatory activity in children born small for gestational age: an MEG study. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 7:600. PDF

van Wijk BCM, Litvak V, Friston KJ, Daffertshofer A (2013). Nonlinear coupling between occipital and motor cortex during motor imagery: a dynamic causal modeling study. Neuroimage 71:104-113. PDF

van Wijk BCM, Beek PJ, Daffertshofer A (2012). Neural synchrony within the motor system: what have we learned so far? Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 6:252. PDF

van Wijk BCM, Willemse RB, Vandertop WP, Daffertshofer A (2012). Slowing of M1 oscillations in brain tumor patients in resting state and during movement. Clinical Neurophysiology 123:2212-2219. PDF

van Wijk BCM, Beek PJ, Daffertshofer A (2012). Differential modulations of ipsilateral and contralateral beta (de)synchronization during unimanual force production. Eur J Neurosci 36:2088-2097. PDF

Daffertshofer A, van Wijk BCM (2011). On the influence of amplitude on the connectivity between phases. Frontiers in Neuroinformatics 5(6). PDF

van Wijk BCM, Stam CJ, Daffertshofer A (2010). Comparing brain networks of different size and connectivity density using graph theory. PLoS One 5:e13701. PDF

Antiqueira L, Rodrigues FA, van Wijk BCM, Costa L da F, Daffertshofer A (2010). Estimating complex cortical networks via surface recordings - a critical note. Neuroimage 53:439-449. PDF

Boonstra TW, van Wijk BCM, Praamstra P, Daffertshofer A (2009). Corticomuscular and bilateral EMG coherence reflect distinct aspects of neural synchronization. Neuroscience Letters 29:17-21. PDF

van Wijk BCM, Daffertshofer A, Roach N, Praamstra P (2009). A role of beta oscillatory synchrony in biasing response competition? Cerebral Cortex 19:1294-1302. PDF

Book Chapters

Thesis: Neural synchronization within and between regions of the motor system. Nov 2012.

Daffertshofer A, van Wijk BCM (2012). Transient motor behavior and synchronization in the cortex. In: Principles of brain dynamics. Chapter 12. Editors: Rabinovich M, Friston KJ, Varona P. MIT Press.

van Wijk BCM, Daffertshofer A, Praamstra P (2008). Local and long-range beta synchrony in motor control. In: Biomagnetism: interdisciplinary research and exploration. Sapporo, Japan: Hokkaido University Press p. 185-187.