Dataset Information

Linking motor-related brain potentials and velocity profiles in multi-joint arm reaching movements.

ABSTRACT: The study of the movement related brain potentials (MRPBs) needs accurate technical approaches to disentangle the specific patterns of bran activity during the preparation and execution of movements. During the last forty years, synchronizing the electromyographic activation (EMG) of the muscle with electrophysiological recordings (EEG) has been commonly ussed for these purposes. However, new clinical approaches in the study of motor diseases and rehabilitation suggest the demand of new paradigms that might go further into the study of the brain activity associated with the kinematics of movements. As a response to this call, we have used a 3-D hand-tracking system with the aim to record continuously the position of an ultrasonic sender attached to the hand during the performance of multi-joint self-paced movements. We synchronized time-series of position and velocity of the sender with the EEG recordings, obtaining specific patterns of brain activity as a function of the fluctuations of the kinematics during natural movement performance. Additionally, the distribution of the brain activity during the preparation and execution phases of movements was similar that reported previously using the EMG, suggesting the validity of our technique. We claim that this paradigm could be usable in patients because of its simplicity and the potential knowledge that can be extracted from clinical protocols.

SUBMITTER: Amengual JL

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4010756 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Linking motor-related brain potentials and velocity profiles in multi-joint arm reaching movements.

Amengual Julià L JL Marco-Pallarés Josep J Grau Carles C Münte Thomas F TF Rodríguez-Fornells Antoni A

Frontiers in human neuroscience 20140429

The study of the movement related brain potentials (MRPBs) needs accurate technical approaches to disentangle the specific patterns of bran activity during the preparation and execution of movements. During the last forty years, synchronizing the electromyographic activation (EMG) of the muscle with electrophysiological recordings (EEG) has been commonly ussed for these purposes. However, new clinical approaches in the study of motor diseases and rehabilitation suggest the demand of new paradigm ...[more]

PMID: 24808853

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Project description:Understanding the impact of weightlessness on human behavior during the forthcoming long-term space missions is of critical importance, especially when considering the efficiency of goal-directed movements in these unusual environments. Several studies provided a large set of evidence that gravity is taken into account during the planning stage of arm reaching movements to optimally anticipate its consequence upon the moving limbs. However, less is known about sensorimotor changes required to face weightless environments when individuals have to perform fast and accurate goal-directed actions with whole-body displacement. We thus aimed at characterizing kinematic features of whole-body reaching movements in microgravity, involving high spatiotemporal constraints of execution, to question whether and how humans are able to maintain the performance of a functional behavior in the standards of normogravity execution. Seven participants were asked to reach as fast and as accurately as possible visual targets while standing during microgravity episodes in parabolic flight. Small and large targets were presented either close or far from the participants (requiring, in the latter case, additional whole-body displacement). Results reported that participants successfully performed the reaching task with general temporal features of movement (e.g., movement speed) close to land observations. However, our analyses also demonstrated substantial kinematic changes related to the temporal structure of focal movement and the postural strategy to successfully perform -constrained- whole-body reaching movements in microgravity. These immediate reorganizations are likely achieved by rapidly taking into account the absence of gravity in motor preparation and execution (presumably from cues about body limbs unweighting). Specifically, when compared to normogravity, the arm deceleration phase substantially increased. Furthermore, greater whole-body forward displacements due to smaller trunk flexions occurred when reaching far targets in microgravity. Remarkably, these changes of focal kinematics and postural strategy appear close to those previously reported when participants performed the same task underwater with neutral buoyancy applied to body limbs. Overall, these novel findings reveal that humans are able to maintain the performance of functional goal-directed whole-body actions in weightlessness by successfully managing spatiotemporal constraints of execution in this unusual environment.

Project description:Practice of movement in virtual-reality and other artificially altered environments has been proposed as a method for rehabilitation following neurological injury and for training new skills in healthy humans. For such training to be useful, there must be transfer of learning from the artificial environment to the performance of desired skills in the natural environment. Therefore an important assumption of such methods is that practice in the altered environment engages the same learning and plasticity mechanisms that are required for skill performance in the natural environment. We test the hypothesis that transfer of learning may fail because the learning and plasticity mechanism that adapts to the altered environment is different from the learning mechanism required for improvement of motor skill. In this paper, we propose that a model that separates skill learning and environmental adaptation is necessary to explain the learning and aftereffects that are observed in virtual reality experiments. In particular, we studied the condition where practice in the altered environment should lead to correct skill performance in the original environment. Our 2-mechanism model predicts that aftereffects will still be observed when returning to the original environment, indicating a lack of skill transfer from the artificial environment to the original environment. To illustrate the model prediction, we tested 10 healthy participants on the interaction between a simple overlearned motor skill (straight hand movements to targets in different directions) and an artificially altered visuomotor environment (rotation of visual feedback of the results of movement). As predicted by the models, participants show adaptation to the altered environment and after-effects on return to the baseline environment even when practice in the altered environment should have led to correct skill performance. The presence of aftereffect under all conditions that involved changes in environment demonstrates separation of environmental adaptation and skill learning. Our results support the existence of two distinct learning modules with different adaptation properties. Therefore we suggest that adaptation to an altered environment may not be useful for training new skills.

Dataset Information

Linking motor-related brain potentials and velocity profiles in multi-joint arm reaching movements.

Publications

Linking motor-related brain potentials and velocity profiles in multi-joint arm reaching movements.

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