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Age-related reduction in motor adaptation: brain structural correlates and the role of explicit memory.

ABSTRACT: The adaption of movement to changes in the environment varies across life span. Recent evidence has linked motor adaptation and its reduction with age to differences in "explicit" learning processes. We examine differences in brain structure and cognition underlying motor adaptation in a population-based cohort (n = 322, aged 18-89 years) using a visuomotor learning task and structural magnetic resonance imaging. Reduced motor adaptation with age was associated with reduced volume in striatum, prefrontal, and sensorimotor cortical regions, but not cerebellum. Medial temporal lobe volume, including the hippocampus, became a stronger determinant of motor adaptation with age. Consistent with the role of the medial temporal lobes, declarative long-term memory showed a similar interaction, whereby memory was more positively correlated with motor adaptation with increasing age. By contrast, visual short-term memory was related to motor adaptation, independently of age. These results support the hypothesis that cerebellar learning is largely unaffected in old age, and the reduction in motor adaptation with age is driven by a decline in explicit memory systems.

SUBMITTER: Wolpe N

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7181181 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Age-related reduction in motor adaptation: brain structural correlates and the role of explicit memory.

Wolpe Noham N Ingram James N JN Tsvetanov Kamen A KA Henson Richard N RN Wolpert Daniel M DM Rowe James B JB

Neurobiology of aging 20200220

The adaption of movement to changes in the environment varies across life span. Recent evidence has linked motor adaptation and its reduction with age to differences in "explicit" learning processes. We examine differences in brain structure and cognition underlying motor adaptation in a population-based cohort (n = 322, aged 18-89 years) using a visuomotor learning task and structural magnetic resonance imaging. Reduced motor adaptation with age was associated with reduced volume in striatum, p ...[more]

PMID: 32184030

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Project description:PurposeTemporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) has been considered to impair long-term memory, whilst not affecting working memory, but recent evidence suggests that working memory is compromised. Functional MRI (fMRI) studies demonstrate that working memory involves a bilateral frontoparietal network the activation of which is disrupted in hippocampal sclerosis (HS). A specific role of the hippocampus to deactivate during working memory has been proposed with this mechanism faulty in patients with HS. Structural correlates of disrupted working memory in HS have not been explored.MethodsWe studied 54 individuals with medically refractory TLE and unilateral HS (29 left) and 28 healthy controls. Subjects underwent 3T structural MRI, a visuospatial n-back fMRI paradigm and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Working memory capacity assessed by three span tasks (digit span backwards, gesture span, motor sequences) was combined with performance in the visuospatial paradigm to give a global working memory measure. Gray and white matter changes were investigated using voxel-based morphometry and voxel-based analysis of DTI, respectively.Key findingsIndividuals with left or right HS performed less well than healthy controls on all measures of working memory. fMRI demonstrated a bilateral frontoparietal network during the working memory task with reduced activation of the right parietal lobe in both patient groups. In left HS, gray matter loss was seen in the ipsilateral hippocampus and parietal lobe, with maintenance of the gray matter volume of the contralateral parietal lobe associated with better performance. White matter integrity within the frontoparietal network, in particular the superior longitudinal fasciculus and cingulum, and the contralateral temporal lobe, was associated with working memory performance. In right HS, gray matter loss was also seen in the ipsilateral hippocampus and parietal lobe. Working memory performance correlated with the gray matter volume of both frontal lobes and white matter integrity within the frontoparietal network and contralateral temporal lobe.SignificanceOur data provide further evidence that working memory is disrupted in HS and impaired integrity of both gray and white matter is seen in functionally relevant areas. We suggest this forms the structural basis of the impairment of working memory, indicating widespread and functionally significant structural changes in patients with apparently isolated HS.

Dataset Information

Age-related reduction in motor adaptation: brain structural correlates and the role of explicit memory.

Publications

Age-related reduction in motor adaptation: brain structural correlates and the role of explicit memory.

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