Papers
61
Total Citations
2,876
H-Index
22
About
Laura Marchal-Crespo is a prominent biomedical engineer and neuroscientist whose work sits at the intersection of robotics, motor learning, and neurological rehabilitation. Best known for her landmark 2009 review of robotic movement training control strategies — now cited over 1,100 times — she has fundamentally shaped how clinicians and engineers think about robot-assisted therapy following stroke and spinal cord injury. Her research has systematically interrogated how haptic guidance and error-amplification techniques influence motor (re)learning across diverse populations, including aging adults and individuals with neurological injuries. Her studies on robotic steering tasks demonstrated that carefully designed haptic feedback can, under the right conditions, meaningfully enhance short-term motor learning, challenging earlier assumptions in the field. Beyond upper-limb applications, Marchal-Crespo has made substantial contributions to lower-limb exoskeleton control for gait rehabilitation and used neuroimaging to illuminate the brain activation patterns underlying locomotor training. Her 2021 review synthesizing haptic training paradigms reflects her commitment to translating fragmented experimental findings into actionable clinical guidance. With a body of work exceeding 1,900 cumulative citations, she remains an influential voice in designing smarter, more effective rehabilitation robotics.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1Review of control strategies for robotic movement training after neurologic injury1,148 citations · 2009
- 2Haptic Guidance Can Enhance Motor Learning of a Steering Task164 citations · 2008
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- 8Brain activation associated with active and passive lower limb stepping80 citations · 2014
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- 10A robotic wheelchair trainer: design overview and a feasibility study75 citations · 2010