Villiger, Michael, Dr.

Michael Villiger did a Bachelor’s in Biochemistry at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. He then chose Neuroscience as for his Master’s. During his Master’s, his research interests were the development and testing of neuropsychological tests for depressed patients. Afterwards, he also completed his Bachelor’s in Human Movement Sciences and Sport at ETH Zurich. He then spent three months in the laboratory for Human Performance at the University of Calgary, Canada investigating basic research of the human sensorimotor system. During his PhD at the Institute of Neuroinformatics, University of Zurich/ETH Zurich, Switzerland, Michael developed and tested a new virtual reality rehabilitation system for spinal cord injury patients and ran functional MRI, (neuro-) physiological and psychological tests for clinical assessment. After finishing his PhD, Michael started as a postdoc at the Spinal Cord Injury Center at Balgrist University Hospital. His research interests are the investigation of novel rehabilitative training devices for the lower limb recovery following human spinal cord injury.

• Villiger, M., Bohli, D., Kiper, D., Pyk, P., Spillmann, J., Meilick, B., Curt, A., Hepp-Reymond, M.C., Hotz-Boendermaker, S. & Eng, K. (2012) Virtual reality-augmented neurorehabilitation improves motor function and reduces neuropathic pain in incomplete spinal cord injury patients. Neurorehabil Neural Repair. 2013 Jun 10. [Epub ahead of print]
• Villiger, M., Estévez, N., Hepp-Reymond, M.C., Kiper, D., Kollias, S.S., Eng, K. & Hotz-Boendermaker, S. (2012) Neural correlates of observation combined with imagination of lower limb movements. Submitted.
• Villiger, M., Chandrasekharen, S. & Welsh, T. (2011) Activity of human motor system during action observation is modulated by object presence. Experimental Brain Research, 209, 85-93.
• Villiger, M., Hepp-Reymond, M.C., Pyk, P., Kiper, D., Spillmann, J., Meilick, B., Estévez, N., Kollias, S.S., Curt, A., Hotz-Boendermaker S. & Eng, K. (2011) Virtual reality rehabilitation system for neuropathic pain and motor dysfunction in spinal cord injury patients. Proceedings of the International Conference on Virtual Rehabilitation, doi: 10.1109/ICVR.2011.5971865.