Dr. Kate Agathos (Postdoc UPMC)

Vision Institute
Aging in Vision and Action Lab
CNRS – INSERM – University Pierre&Marie Curie
17, rue Moreau F-75012 Paris, France

email:

 

My main research focus is on multi-sensory integration and reweighting for sensorimotor control. In particular, I am interested in how changes due to age or pathology affect one’s perception of their environment (and self), how this perception influences sensorimotor control for postural and locomotor equilibrium, and how such principles may be used to develop assessment, prevention and rehabilitation protocols.

I studied Biomedical Engineering at Imperial College London where I veered toward neuroscience and motor control. My Master’s thesis focused on motor noise and age-related tremor and marked the beginning of my interest in sensorimotor control across aging and pathology. I obtained my Masters of Engineering in 2011 and subsequently worked for a year in the College’s Centre for Bio-Inspired Technology on the electrochemical characterisation of neural interfaces.
I obtained my PhD in Sports and Human Movement Science in 2016 from the University of Paris Saclay (Université Paris-Sud). My research was conducted in the context of a CIFRE collaboration between the CIAMS laboratory of Université Paris-Sud, under the supervision of Prof. Brice Isableu; the LNC of Aix-Marseille Université, supervised by Dr. Christine Assaiante; and the Vision Sciences R&D department of Essilor International, under the direction of Dr. Delphine Bernardin. In my thesis, I examined how the preferential use of visual cues for spatial orientation influences sensorimotor control (in standing and walking) and investigated the possible mechanisms that may lead old adults to place greater weight on visual cues in multisensory integration. Recurring themes in my research were the association of using the visual field as a frame of reference (FoR) in old age with greater age-related deficits in sensory and cognitive abilities; the alteration of the body schema with age which contributes to greater reliance on the visual FoR; and the need to examine multimodal contributions to sensorimotor control. A major focus of my work was the identification of specific motor behaviours and strategies that would indicate a preferential reliance on the visual FoR.
In April 2017 I joined the Aging in Vision and Action Lab in order to investigate postural and gaze behaviour during a navigation task in young and healthy old adults and examine the possible associations of such behaviours with specific navigation strategies.

Keywords: Aging, frames of reference, visual field dependence, posture, walking, optic flow.

 

CV and Publication List (pdf): [ download ]

Publications

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2020

  1. Bécu M, Sheynikhovich D, Tatur G, Agathos C, Bologna LL, Sahel JA and Arleo A (2020) Age-related preference for geometric spatial cues during real-world navigation. Nature Human Behaviour, 4(1):88-99.
  2. Agathos CP, Ramanoel S, Bécu M, Bernardin D, Habas C and Arleo A (2020) Postural control while walking interferes with spatial learning in older adults navigating in a real Environment. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, 12:588653.

2019

  1. Agathos CP, Ramanoël S, Bécu M, Baranton K, Bernardin D and Arleo A (2019) An alternative view of dual-tasking in older adults: Cognitive-motor interference while navigating in an ecological environment. Neurophysiologie Clinique, 49(6):414.

2017

  1. Agathos CP, Bernardin D, Baranton K, Assaiante C and Isableu B (2017) Drifting while stepping in place in old adults: Association of self-motion perception with reference frame reliance and ground optic flow sensitivity. Neuroscience, 347:134-147.

2015

  1. Agathos CP, Bernardin D, Huchet D, Scherlen AC, Assaiante C and Isableu B (2015) Sensorimotor and cognitive factors associated with the age-related increase of visual field dependence: a cross-sectional study. Age, 37(4):67.