Staff Profiles

Clinical gait analysis, Virtual rehabilitation, Functional anatomy, Biomechanics of gait and injuries, Sports biomechanics, Sports injuries, Sports technology.

Gabor is advisory board member of LJMU’s Centre for Health and Social Care Informatics, LJMU’s Institute of Health Research (Co-Lead of the Quality of life, living with chronic conditions Network), the European Society of Movement Analysis for Adults and Children (ESMAC), and the Clinical Movement Analysis Society UK and Ireland (CMAS) indicating the scope of his research interests.

Gabor is lead investigator in several externally and internally funded research projects concerned with the use of virtual reality games training of postural control in children with cerebral palsy (in collaboration with Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool, The Movement Centre in Oswestry, and MotekMedical in Amsterdam) and the assessment of upper limb function and rehabilitation following tendon transfer in tetraplegia (in collaboration with the Regional Spinal Injuries Centre, Southport & Ormskirk Hospital). Gabor's research activity also covers the application of artificial neural networks to support decision making in clinical gait analysis.

• £298,000 - Movement Function Research Laboratory, Joint applicant, Science Research Investment Fund 2 (HEFCE), 2003.
• £85,000 - Modelling Training and Performance in Competitive Cyclists, Co-Investigator, EPSRC – UK Sport “Achieving Gold”, 17/10/2007 - 16/10/2008 (12 months).
• £102,917 - Training and Testing Core Control using Virtual Reality Games: A Pilot Study, Principal Investigator, The WellChild Trust, 01/09/2008 – 28/02/2010 (18 months).
• £7,974 - Towards the clinical implementation of games based core control training, Co-Applicant, Charitable Funds, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, 05/01/2009 – 05/04/2009 (3 months).
• £80,820 - Research Consultancy in Virtual Rehabilitation, Principal Applicant, Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust (NIHR FSF fund), 01/04/2009 – 31/03/2012 (3 years).
• £41,370 - Improvement of selective movement control using custom made computer games, Principal Investigator, Institute for Health Research LJMU, 03/09/2009 (3 years PhD studentship)
• £7,000 - Development of a virtual reality mirror box for pain research, Co-Applicant, Institute for Health Research LJMU, 07/09/2009- 27/08/2010 (12 months).

Through the Biomechanical Assessment Service he is capitalising on his clinical and gait analysis background aiming to help members of the public with movement problems.

• Barton GJ, Holmes G, Hawken M, Lees A, Vanrenterghem J (2006) A virtual reality tool for training and testing core stability: a pilot study. Abstract / Gait and Posture, 24/Suppl. 2: S101-S102. 1st Joint ESMAC – GCMAS Meeting, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 28-30 Sept. Winner of the Best Poster Prize.
• Barton GJ (2008) Improving core control of children with cerebral palsy using virtual reality games. 1st Conference of the Institute for Health Research, Liverpool John Moores University. 9 May. Winner of Best combined Oral and Poster Prize.
• Robinson MA, Barton GJ, Lees A, Sett P (2008) Reaching ability of tetraplegics in their 3D workspace after tendon transfer surgery. 16th Congress of the European Society of Biomechanics, Lucerne Switzerland, 6-9th July. Runner up for Student Award.
• Foster R, Bass A, Holmes G, Hawken M, Barton GJ (2009). Integration of a portable controller into virtual reality based core training for implementation in clinical practice. 2nd Conference of the Institute for Health Research, Liverpool John Moores University. 15th May. Runner up for Best Poster Prize.

• Lees A, Barton GJ (2005) A characterisation of technique in the soccer kick using a Kohonen neural network analysis. In: Science and Football V . Proceedings of the Fifth World Congress of Science and Football. Editors: Reilly T, Cabri J and Araujo D. pp. 83-88, Routledge, London.
• Robinson M, Lees A, Barton GJ (2005) An electromyographic investigation of abdominal exercises and the effects of fatigue.  Ergonomics. 48/11-14: 1604-12.
• Barton JG (2005) Visualisation of gait data using a self organising artificial neural network. Invited Chapter in Computational Intelligence for Movement Sciences: Neural Networks, Support Vector Machines and other Emerging Techniques. Editors: Begg, RK and Palaniswami, M. pp. 197-216. Idea Group Inc., USA .
• Williams AM, Hodges NJ, North J, Barton GJ (2006) Perceiving patterns of play in dynamic sport tasks: Investigating the essential information underlying skilled performance. Perception. 35/3: 317-32.
• Barton GJ (2006) Visualisation of gait data using a self organising artificial neural network. In: Computational Intelligence for Movement Sciences: Neural Networks, Support Vector Machines and other Emerging Techniques. Editors: Begg, RK and Palaniswami, M. pp. 197-216. USA, Idea Group Inc.
• Barton GJ, Lees A, Lisboa P, Attfield S (2006) Visualisation of gait data with Kohonen self‑organising neural maps. Gait and Posture. 24/1: 46-53.
• Barton GJ, Vanrenterghem J, Lees A, Lake M (2006) A method for manipulating a movable platform’s axes of rotation: a novel use of the CAREN system. Gait and Posture. 24/4: 510-4.
• Barton GJ, Lees A, Lisboa P, Attfield S (2007) Gait quality assessment using self-organising artificial neural networks. Gait and Posture. 25/3: 374-379.
• Lees A, Vanrenterghem J, Barton GJ, Lake M (2007) Kinematic response characteristics of the CAREN moving platform system for use in posture and balance research. Medical Engineering and Physics. 29/5: 629-635.
• Hawkins PJR, Hawken MB, Barton GJ (2008) Effect of game speed and surface perturbations on postural control in a virtual environment. Proceedings of the 7th ICDVRAT with ArtAbilitation, Maia, Portugal.
  (available online at http://www.icdvrat.reading.ac.uk/2008/abstracts.htm)
• Lees A, Steward I, Rahnama N, Barton GJ (2009) Lower limb function in the maximal instep kick in soccer. In Contemporary Sport, leisure and Ergonomics. Editors: Reilly T and Atkinson G. pp. 149-160. Oxford, Routledge.
• Jobson SA, Passfield L, Atkinson G, Barton GJ, Scarf P (2009) The analysis and utilisation of cycling training data: a review. Sports Medicine. 39/10: 833-844.