Catherine Lebel

Papers

Total Citations

101

H-Index

About

Catherine Lebel is a leading researcher in pediatric neuroimaging, with a focus on understanding brain development and injury in children with cerebral palsy (CP). Her work centers on the neural underpinnings of motor and sensory deficits following perinatal stroke, the primary cause of hemiparetic CP. Lebel’s major contributions include using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to map white matter tracts, such as the corticospinal tract (CST), and correlating these structural properties with robotic assessments of motor function and proprioception. Her highly cited 2017 study (52 citations) demonstrated that CST diffusion properties predict robotic visually guided reaching abilities in children with hemiparetic CP, providing a critical link between brain structure and motor impairment. Another influential 2017 paper (49 citations) extended this work by exploring sensory tractography and robot-quantified proprioception, revealing that sensory tract integrity is associated with proprioceptive deficits. These studies have significantly advanced the understanding of how perinatal stroke affects brain connectivity and function, offering potential biomarkers for targeted interventions. Lebel’s innovative combination of advanced neuroimaging and robotic assessments has established her as a key figure in pediatric rehabilitation neuroscience, with her work informing clinical strategies to improve motor and sensory outcomes in children with CP.