Department of Psychology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
J Neurophysiol. 2013 Feb;109(3):782-91. doi: 10.1152/jn.00734.2011. Epub 2012 Nov 7.
A complex interplay has been demonstrated between motor and sensory systems. We showed recently that motor learning leads to changes in the sensed position of the limb (Ostry DJ, Darainy M, Mattar AA, Wong J, Gribble PL. J Neurosci 30: 5384-5393, 2010). Here, we document further the links between motor learning and changes in somatosensory perception. To study motor learning, we used a force field paradigm in which subjects learn to compensate for forces applied to the hand by a robotic device. We used a task in which subjects judge lateral displacements of the hand to study somatosensory perception. In a first experiment, we divided the motor learning task into incremental phases and tracked sensory perception throughout. We found that changes in perception occurred at a slower rate than changes in motor performance. A second experiment tested whether awareness of the motor learning process is necessary for perceptual change. In this experiment, subjects were exposed to a force field that grew gradually in strength. We found that the shift in sensory perception occurred even when awareness of motor learning was reduced. These experiments argue for a link between motor learning and changes in somatosensory perception, and they are consistent with the idea that motor learning drives sensory change.
运动和感觉系统之间存在复杂的相互作用。我们最近表明，运动学习会导致肢体感觉位置的变化（Ostry DJ、Darainy M、Mattar AA、Wong J、Gribble PL。J Neurosci 30: 5384-5393, 2010）。在这里，我们进一步记录了运动学习和感觉知觉变化之间的联系。为了研究运动学习，我们使用了力场范式，在该范式中，受试者学会补偿机器人设备施加到手的力。我们使用了一个任务，在该任务中，受试者判断手的横向位移，以研究感觉知觉。在第一个实验中，我们将运动学习任务分为递增阶段，并在整个过程中跟踪感觉知觉。我们发现感知变化的速度比运动表现变化的速度慢。第二个实验测试了对运动学习过程的意识是否是感知变化所必需的。在这个实验中，受试者暴露在逐渐增强的力场中。我们发现，即使运动学习的意识降低，感觉知觉的转变也会发生。这些实验证明了运动学习和感觉知觉变化之间存在联系，并且与运动学习驱动感觉变化的观点一致。
