Hotz Boendermaker, Sabina, Dr.

Sabina Hotz began her education in physiotherapy due to a fascination with human movement. After working several years with various clinical populations she embarked on further education in psychology and neuroscience, with a special focus on topics of sensorimotor interactions. Sabina’s PhD thesis focused on behavioural and neuroimaging experiments on action execution, action observation, and imagery of limb movements in healthy subjects and paraplegic individuals and was based on research from her Master’s thesis, during which she investigated somatotopy and reorganisation in individuals with SCI. Currently she is focusing on exploring the use of virtual reality (VR) in neurorehabiliation of SCI patients. Treatments using VR, revealed that visual-sensorimotor interactions improved chronic pain and motor functions in SCI patients.

• Curt, A, Alkadhi, H, Crelier, GR, Hotz Boendermaker, S, Hepp-Reymond MC & Kollias SS. (2002). Changes of non-affected upper limb cortical representation in paraplegic patients as assessed by fMRI. Brain, 125, 2567-78.
• Alkadhi, H, Brugger, P, Hotz Boendermaker, S, Crelier, GR, Curt A, Hepp-Reymond MC & Kollias SS. (2005). What disconnection tells about motor imagery. Evidence from paraplegic patients. Cerebral Cortex, 15, 131-40.
• Hotz Boendermaker, S, Funk, M, Summers, P, Brugger, P, Hepp-Reymond, MC, Kollias, SS & Curt, A. (2008). Preservation of motor programs in paraplegics as demonstrated by attempted and imagined foot movements. Neuroimage, Jan 1;39(1):383-94.
• Hotz-Boendermaker S, Hepp-Reymond MC, Curt A, Kollias SS. (2011) Movement observation activates lower limb motor networks in chronic complete paraplegia. Neurorehabil Neural Repair. 25(5):469-76.
• van Hedel HJ, Dokladal P, Hotz-Boendermaker S. (2011). Mismatch Between Investigator-Determined and Patient-Reported Independence After Spinal Cord Injury: Consequences for Rehabilitation and Trials. Neurorehabil Neural Repair. Jun 2. [Epub ahead of print] 
• Virtual reality rehabilitation system for neuropathic pain and motor dysfunction in spinal cord injury patients (2011). Villiger, M, Hepp-Reymond, MC, Pyk, P, Kiper, D, Eng, K, Spillman, J, Meilick, B, Estevez, N, Kollias, SS, Curt, A, Hotz-Boendermaker S. Virtuel Rehabilitation (ICRV), 27-29 June 2011.
• Depressive symptoms are low following acute spinal cord injury compared to other neurological disorders. Katayun Hassanpour, Sabina Hotz Boendermaker, Petra Dokladal, Armin Curt, the EM-SCI Study Group. J Neurol (2012) 259:1142–1150.