scholarly journals Effect of Repetitive Passive Movement Before Motor Skill Training on Corticospinal Excitability and Motor Learning Depend on BDNF Polymorphisms

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manh Van Pham ◽  
Shota Miyaguchi ◽  
Hiraku Watanabe ◽  
Kei Saito ◽  
Naofumi Otsuru ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Motor Learning ◽  
Index Finger ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Passive Movement ◽  
Corticospinal Excitability ◽  
Homeostatic Plasticity ◽  
Learning Ability ◽  
Learning Efficiency ◽  
Learning Tasks ◽  
The Right

A decrease in cortical excitability tends to be easily followed by an increase induced by external stimuli via a mechanism aimed at restoring it; this phenomenon is called “homeostatic plasticity.” In recent years, although intervention methods aimed at promoting motor learning using this phenomenon have been studied, an optimal intervention method has not been established. In the present study, we examined whether subsequent motor learning can be promoted further by a repetitive passive movement, which reduces the excitability of the primary motor cortex (M1) before motor learning tasks. We also examined the relationship between motor learning and the brain-derived neurotrophic factor. Forty healthy subjects (Val/Val genotype, 17 subjects; Met carrier genotype, 23 subjects) participated. Subjects were divided into two groups of 20 individuals each. The first group was assigned to perform the motor learning task after an intervention consisting in the passive adduction–abduction movement of the right index finger at 5 Hz for 10 min (RPM condition), while the second group was assigned to perform the task without the passive movement (control condition). The motor learning task consisted in the visual tracking of the right index finger. The results showed that the corticospinal excitability was transiently reduced after the passive movement in the RPM condition, whereas it was increased to the level detected in the control condition after the motor learning task. Furthermore, the motor learning ability was decreased immediately after the passive movement; however, the motor performance finally improved to the level observed in the control condition. In individuals carrying the Val/Val genotype, higher motor learning was also found to be related to the more remarkable changes in corticospinal excitability caused by the RPM condition. This study revealed that the implementation of a passive movement before a motor learning tasks did not affect M1 excitatory changes and motor learning efficiency; in contrast, in subjects carrying the Val/Val polymorphism, the more significant excitatory changes in the M1 induced by the passive movement and motor learning task led to the improvement of motor learning efficiency. Our results also suggest that homeostatic plasticity occurring in the M1 is involved in this improvement.

BDNF Val66Met polymorphism is associated with abnormal interhemispheric transfer of a newly acquired motor skill

2014 ◽  
Vol 111 (10) ◽  
pp. 2094-2102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivier Morin-Moncet ◽  
Vincent Beaumont ◽  
Louis de Beaumont ◽  
Jean-Francois Lepage ◽  
Hugo Théoret
Keyword(s):  
Motor Cortex ◽  
Motor Learning ◽  
Motor Skill ◽  
Interhemispheric Transfer ◽  
Corticospinal Excitability ◽  
Genetic Group ◽  
Val66met Polymorphism ◽  
Genotype Group ◽  
Left Hand ◽  
The Right

Recent data suggest that the Val66Met polymorphism of the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) gene can alter cortical plasticity within the motor cortex of carriers, which exhibits abnormally low rates of cortical reorganization after repetitive motor tasks. To verify whether long-term retention of a motor skill is also modulated by the presence of the polymorphism, 20 participants (10 Val66Val, 10 Val66Met) were tested twice at a 1-wk interval. During each visit, excitability of the motor cortex was measured by transcranial magnetic stimulations (TMS) before and after performance of a procedural motor learning task (serial reaction time task) designed to study sequence-specific learning of the right hand and sequence-specific transfer from the right to the left hand. Behavioral results showed a motor learning effect that persisted for at least a week and task-related increases in corticospinal excitability identical for both sessions and without distinction for genetic group. Sequence-specific transfer of the motor skill from the right hand to the left hand was greater in session 2 than in session 1 only in the Val66Met genetic group. Further analysis revealed that the sequence-specific transfer occurred equally at both sessions in the Val66Val genotype group. In the Val66Met genotype group, sequence-specific transfer did not occur at session 1 but did at session 2. These data suggest a limited impact of Val66Met polymorphism on the learning and retention of a complex motor skill and its associated changes in corticospinal excitability over time, and a possible modulation of the interhemispheric transfer of procedural learning.

Shifts in Kinesthesis through Time and after Active and Passive Movement

1975 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 755-761 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Craske ◽  
Martin Crawshaw
Keyword(s):  
Shoulder Joint ◽  
Index Finger ◽  
Position Sense ◽  
Passive Movement ◽  
Active Movement ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Left Hand ◽  
Limb Position ◽  
Test Position ◽  
The Right

The position sense of a stationary arm was investigated subsequent to an horizontally adductive movement with axis the shoulder joint. The right arm was the treated arm: it reached a test position actively, using minimal voluntary effort, or passively from each of 10 starting positions. The blindfolded S localized the index finger of the treated arm by attempting to touch it with the index finger of his left hand. The results indicate that subsequent to active movement the final position of a limb is more accurately known than a position resulting from passive movement. A second finding is that concomitant with both forms of limb placement there is a unidirectional drift of perceived limb position over trials.

scholarly journals Modulation of neural activity in frontopolar cortex drives reward-based motor learning

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Herrojo Ruiz ◽  
Tom Maudrich ◽  
Benjamin Kalloch ◽  
Daniela Sammler ◽  
Rouven Kenville ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Motor Learning ◽  
Learning Strategy ◽  
Computational Modelling ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Motor Sequence ◽  
Healthy Human ◽  
Frontopolar Cortex ◽  
Human Participants ◽  
Efficient Learning ◽  
The Right

Abstract The frontopolar cortex (FPC) contributes to tracking the reward of alternative choices during decision making, as well as their reliability. Whether this FPC function extends to reward gradients associated with continuous movements during motor learning remains unknown. We used anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the right FPC to investigate its role in reward-based motor learning. Nineteen healthy human participants completed a motor sequence learning task using trialwise reward feedback to discover a hidden goal along a continuous dimension: timing. As additional conditions, we modulated the contralateral motor cortex (left M1) activity, and included a control sham stimulation. Right FPC-tDCS led to faster learning compared to lM1-tDCS and sham through regulation of motor variability. Computational modelling revealed that in all stimulation protocols, an increase in the trialwise expectation of reward was followed by greater exploitation, as shown previously. Yet, this association was weaker in lM1-tDCS suggesting a less efficient learning strategy. The effects of frontopolar stimulation were dissociated from those induced by lM1-tDCS and sham, as motor exploration was more sensitive to inferred changes in the reward tendency (volatility). The findings suggest that rFPC-tDCS increases the sensitivity of motor exploration to updates in reward volatility, accelerating reward-based motor learning.

scholarly journals Somatosensory working memory in human reinforcement-based motor learning

2018 ◽  
Vol 120 (6) ◽  
pp. 3275-3286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ananda Sidarta ◽  
Floris T. van Vugt ◽  
David J. Ostry
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Motor Learning ◽  
Positive Feedback ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Visuomotor Adaptation ◽  
Subsequent Test ◽  
Learning Tasks ◽  
Study Participants

Recent studies using visuomotor adaptation and sequence learning tasks have assessed the involvement of working memory in the visuospatial domain. The capacity to maintain previously performed movements in working memory is perhaps even more important in reinforcement-based learning to repeat accurate movements and avoid mistakes. Using this kind of task in the present work, we tested the relationship between somatosensory working memory and motor learning. The first experiment involved separate memory and motor learning tasks. In the memory task, the participant’s arm was displaced in different directions by a robotic arm, and the participant was asked to judge whether a subsequent test direction was one of the previously presented directions. In the motor learning task, participants made reaching movements to a hidden visual target and were provided with positive feedback as reinforcement when the movement ended in the target zone. It was found that participants that had better somatosensory working memory showed greater motor learning. In a second experiment, we designed a new task in which learning and working memory trials were interleaved, allowing us to study participants’ memory for movements they performed as part of learning. As in the first experiment, we found that participants with better somatosensory working memory also learned more. Moreover, memory performance for successful movements was better than for movements that failed to reach the target. These results suggest that somatosensory working memory is involved in reinforcement motor learning and that this memory preferentially keeps track of reinforced movements. NEW & NOTEWORTHY The present work examined somatosensory working memory in reinforcement-based motor learning. Working memory performance was reliably correlated with the extent of learning. With the use of a paradigm in which learning and memory trials were interleaved, memory was assessed for movements performed during learning. Movements that received positive feedback were better remembered than movements that did not. Thus working memory does not track all movements equally but is biased to retain movements that were rewarded.

scholarly journals Sequential motor learning transfers from real to virtual environment

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuhi Takeo ◽  
Masayuki Hara ◽  
Yuna Shirakawa ◽  
Takashi Ikeda ◽  
Hisato Sugata
Keyword(s):  
Motor Learning ◽  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Motor Skills ◽  
Skill Acquisition ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Button Press ◽  
Reaching Task ◽  
Learning Tasks ◽  
Task Order

Abstract Background Skill acquisition of motor learning between virtual environments (VEs) and real environments (REs) may be related. Although studies have previously examined the transfer of motor learning in VEs and REs through the same tasks, only a small number of studies have focused on studying the transfer of motor learning in VEs and REs by using different tasks. Thus, detailed effects of the transfer of motor skills between VEs and REs remain controversial. Here, we investigated the transfer of sequential motor learning between VEs and REs conditions. Methods Twenty-seven healthy volunteers performed two types of sequential motor learning tasks; a visually cued button-press task in RE (RE task) and a virtual reaching task in VE (VE task). Participants were randomly assigned to two groups in the task order; the first group was RE task followed by VE task and the second group was VE task followed by RE task. Subsequently, the response time in RE task and VE task was compared between the two groups respectively. Results The results showed that the sequential reaching task in VEs was facilitated after the sequential finger task in REs. Conclusions These findings suggested that the sequential reaching task in VEs can be facilitated by a motor learning task comprising the same sequential finger task in REs, even when a different task is applied.

scholarly journals An Examination of Strategy Implementation During Abstract Nonlinguistic Category Learning in Aphasia

2015 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 1195-1209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sofia Vallila-Rohter ◽  
Swathi Kiran
Keyword(s):  
Category Learning ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Strategy Use ◽  
Learning Ability ◽  
Strategy Development ◽  
Random Pattern ◽  
Feedback Processing ◽  
Learning Tasks ◽  
Single Feature

Purpose Our purpose was to study strategy use during nonlinguistic category learning in aphasia. Method Twelve control participants without aphasia and 53 participants with aphasia (PWA) completed a computerized feedback-based category learning task consisting of training and testing phases. Accuracy rates of categorization in testing phases were calculated. To evaluate strategy use, strategy analyses were conducted over training and testing phases. Participant data were compared with model data that simulated complex multi-cue, single feature, and random pattern strategies. Learning success and strategy use were evaluated within the context of standardized cognitive–linguistic assessments. Results Categorization accuracy was higher among control participants than among PWA. The majority of control participants implemented suboptimal or optimal multi-cue and single-feature strategies by testing phases of the experiment. In contrast, a large subgroup of PWA implemented random patterns, or no strategy, during both training and testing phases of the experiment. Conclusions Person-to-person variability arises not only in category learning ability but also in the strategies implemented to complete category learning tasks. PWA less frequently developed effective strategies during category learning tasks than control participants. Certain PWA may have impairments of strategy development or feedback processing not captured by language and currently probed cognitive abilities.

scholarly journals Perceptual learning in sensorimotor adaptation

2013 ◽  
Vol 110 (9) ◽  
pp. 2152-2162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Darainy ◽  
Shahabeddin Vahdat ◽  
David J. Ostry
Keyword(s):  
Motor Learning ◽  
Perceptual Learning ◽  
Skill Acquisition ◽  
Motor Performance ◽  
Passive Movement ◽  
Sensorimotor Adaptation ◽  
Perceptual Training ◽  
Beneficial Effects ◽  
Tennis Serve ◽  
The Right

Motor learning often involves situations in which the somatosensory targets of movement are, at least initially, poorly defined, as for example, in learning to speak or learning the feel of a proper tennis serve. Under these conditions, motor skill acquisition presumably requires perceptual as well as motor learning. That is, it engages both the progressive shaping of sensory targets and associated changes in motor performance. In the present study, we test the idea that perceptual learning alters somatosensory function and in so doing produces changes to human motor performance and sensorimotor adaptation. Subjects in these experiments undergo perceptual training in which a robotic device passively moves the subject's arm on one of a set of fan-shaped trajectories. Subjects are required to indicate whether the robot moved the limb to the right or the left and feedback is provided. Over the course of training both the perceptual boundary and acuity are altered. The perceptual learning is observed to improve both the rate and extent of learning in a subsequent sensorimotor adaptation task and the benefits persist for at least 24 h. The improvement in the present studies varies systematically with changes in perceptual acuity and is obtained regardless of whether the perceptual boundary shift serves to systematically increase or decrease error on subsequent movements. The beneficial effects of perceptual training are found to be substantially dependent on reinforced decision-making in the sensory domain. Passive-movement training on its own is less able to alter subsequent learning in the motor system. Overall, this study suggests perceptual learning plays an integral role in motor learning.

scholarly journals Sequential Motor Learning Transfers from Real to Virtual Environment

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuhi Takeo ◽  
Masayuki Hara ◽  
Yuna Shirakawa ◽  
Takashi Ikeda ◽  
Hisato Sugata
Keyword(s):  
Motor Learning ◽  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Motor Skills ◽  
Skill Acquisition ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Button Press ◽  
Reaching Task ◽  
Learning Tasks ◽  
Task Order

Abstract Background:Skill acquisition of motor learning between virtual environments (VEs) and real environments (REs) may be related. Although studies have previously examined the transfer of motor learning in VEs and REs through the same tasks, only a small number of studies have focused on studying the transfer of motor learning in VEs and REs by using different tasks. Thus, detailed effects of the transfer of motor skills between VEs and REs remain controversial. Here, we investigated the transfer of sequential motor learning between VEs and REs conditions.Methods:Twenty-seven healthy volunteers performed two types of sequential motor learning tasks; a visually cued button press task in RE (RE task) and a virtual reaching task in VE (VE task). Participants were randomly assigned to two groups in the task order; the first group was RE task followed by VE task and the second group was VE task followed by RE task. Subsequently, the response time in RE task and VE task was compared between the two groups respectively.Results:The results revealed that sequential motor learning was transferred when motor learning in VEs was performed after motor learning in REs, but not when motor learning in REs was performed after motor learning in VEs.Conclusions:These findings suggested that sequential motor learning in VEs can be facilitated by motor learning task consisting of the same sequence in REs even when different task is applied. These results may derive from the fact that motor learning in REs is more implicit than that in VEs.

The acquisition of face and person identity information following anterior temporal lobectomy

2005 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 237-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARIA MORAN ◽  
MICHAEL SEIDENBERG ◽  
DAVE SABSEVITZ ◽  
SARA SWANSON ◽  
BRUCE HERMANN
Keyword(s):  
Learning Task ◽  
Learning Ability ◽  
Temporal Lobectomy ◽  
Anterior Temporal Lobectomy ◽  
Biographical Information ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
The Right ◽  
Clinical Measures ◽  
Unfamiliar Faces

Thirty unilateral anterior temporal lobectomy (ATL) subjects (15 right and 15 left) and 15 controls were presented a multitrial learning task in which unfamiliar faces were paired with biographical information (occupation, city location, and a person's name). Face recognition hits were similar between groups, but the right ATL group committed more false-positive errors to face foils. Both left and right ATL groups were impaired relative to controls in acquiring biographical information, but the deficit was more pronounced for the left ATL group. Recall levels also varied for the different types of biographical information; occupation was most commonly recalled followed by city name and person name. In addition, city and person name recall was more likely when occupation was also recalled. Overall, recall of biographical information was positively correlated with clinical measures of anterograde episodic memory. Findings are discussed in terms of the role of the temporal lobe and associative learning ability in the successful acquisition of new face semantic (biographical) representations. (JINS, 2005,11, 237–248.)

scholarly journals Efference copy is necessary for the attenuation of self-generated touch

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Konstantina Kilteni ◽  
Patrick Engeler ◽  
H. Henrik Ehrsson
Keyword(s):  
Index Finger ◽  
Alternative Hypothesis ◽  
Motor Command ◽  
Passive Movement ◽  
Efference Copy ◽  
Tactile Feedback ◽  
Left Index Finger ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Computational Theory ◽  
The Right

AbstractA self-generated touch feels less intense than an external touch of the exact same intensity. According to a prevalent computational theory of motor control, this attenuation occurs because the brain uses internal forward models to predict the somatosensory consequences of our movements using a copy of the motor command, i.e., the efference copy. These tactile predictions are then used to suppress the perceived intensity of the actual tactile feedback. Despite being highly influential, the core assumption of theory has never been tested; that is, whether the efference copy is necessary for somatosensory attenuation. A possible alternative hypothesis is that a predictable contact of two of one’s own body parts is sufficient. Using a psychophysical task, we quantified the attenuation of touch applied on the participants’ left index finger when the touch was triggered by the active or passive movement of the participants’ right index finger and when it was externally generated in the absence of any movement. We observed somatosensory attenuation only when the touch was triggered by the voluntary movement of the participants’ finger. In contrast, during the passive movement, the intensity of the touch was perceived to be as strong as when the touch was externally triggered. In both active and passive movement conditions, the participants showed the same discrimination capacity. Electromyographic recordings confirmed minimal activity of the right hand during the passive movement. Together, our results suggest that the efference copy is necessary for computing the somatosensory predictions that produce the attenuation of self-generated touch.

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