Dr. Aurore Thibaut is co-director of the Coma Science Group. As a physical therapist her work focuses on neurorehabilitation for patients with disorders of consciousness. Dr Thibaut research mainly focus on non-invasive brain stimulation in patients who had suffered from a severe brain injury with the aim to improve brain plasticity and facilitate their recovery. She published more than 90 papers and is leading several multicentre clinical trials. She is also working with neuroimaging and electrophysiology to objectify brain plasticity linked to these novel therapeutic approaches. She recently started to study concussion and the importance of sleep in motor learning and currently coordinates several studies on this topic.
After completing her PhD, she spent two years as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Spaulding Rehabilitation Center, Harvard Medical School, under the supervision of Prof. Fregni. She also closely collaborated with Prof. Giacino, Director of Rehabilitation Neuropsychology, Harvard Medical School. She currently has a FNRS Research Associate position since 2021 at the Coma Science Group.
Beside her research activities at the Coma Science Group, she is the leader of the treatment subgroup of the IBIA DOC-SIG with Drs. Caroline Schnakers and Nathan Zasler serving as chairs. She still closely collaborates with Prof. Fregni and the Spaulding Neuromodulation Centre, working on new non-invasive brain stimulation techniques to improve brain function by enhancing cortical activity and connectivity in diverse conditions. She is also associate editor for PPCR journal, section editor for Frontiers in Neurology and guest editor for a special issue on disorders of consciousness in Brain Sciences.