Aurore Thibaut

As a physical therapist by training, Dr. Thibaut is interested in developing novel neurorehabilitation strategies for patients with both mild and severe brain injuries.
Dr. Thibaut’s research mainly focuses on non-invasive brain stimulation in post-coma patients with the aim to improve brain plasticity and facilitate their recovery. She published more than 100 papers and is leading several multicenter clinical trials. She is also working with neuroimaging and electrophysiology to objectify brain plasticity linked to these therapeutic approaches. She recently started to study concussion and the importance of sleep and motor learning impairments in this condition.

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, Department of Physical Medicine, Harvard Medical School. She currently has a FNRS post-doctoral position since 2017 at the Coma Science Group where she leads the Neurorehabilitation team and was recently promoted co-director of the Coma Science Group with Dr. Olivia Gosseries.

Beside her research activities at the Coma Science Group, she is an Associate professor at the University of Liège and an invited lecturer at the Université Libre de Bruxelle. Aurore also leads 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 (Harvard Medical School, Boston) working on new non-invasive brain stimulation techniques to improve brain function by enhancing cortical activity and connectivity in diverse conditions such as concussion and chronic pain. 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.

Dr. Thibaut currently serves as a Junior Trustee of the International Brain Injury Association.