Cicerale Alessandro, Ambron Elisabetta, Lingnau Angelika, Rumiati Raffaella I
Area of Neuroscience, SISSA, Trieste, Italy; LabNI, Department of Neurosciences, University of Turin, Italy.
Area of Neuroscience, SISSA, Trieste, Italy.
Acta Psychol (Amst). 2014 Sep;151:134-42. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2014.06.004. Epub 2014 Jun 28.
Grasping is a complex action which requires high-level motor control. Although the impact of aging on grasping has been investigated in some studies, to date little is known as to how the aging process interacts with the purpose of the movement. The aims of the present study were (i) to investigate the effect of aging on grasping movements, and to explore on how this effect is modulated by (ii) the goal of the task, and by (iii) the characteristics of the target such as its location in the visual field, its orientation and its size. Young and elderly adults were asked to grasp to move or to grasp to use objects of different sizes and orientations, presented either in the central or the peripheral visual field. Movement duration did not differ between the two groups. However, elderly participants required a longer approach phase and showed a different grasping strategy, characterized by larger grip aperture and smaller percentage of wrist rotation in comparison to young adults. Elderly adults showed a decrease in accuracy when grasping objects presented in the peripheral, but not in the central visual field. A similar modulation of the kinematic parameters consisting in longer planning and execution phases in the grasp to use in comparison to the grasp to move condition was observed in both groups, suggesting that the effect of aging might be minimized and compensated in more goal-directed tasks.
抓握是一种复杂的动作，需要高级运动控制。尽管一些研究已经探讨了衰老对抓握的影响，但迄今为止，关于衰老过程如何与运动目的相互作用仍知之甚少。本研究的目的是：（i）研究衰老对抓握动作的影响，并探讨这种影响如何受到（ii）任务目标以及（iii）目标特征（如在视野中的位置、方向和大小）的调节。要求年轻和年长的成年人抓握以移动或抓握以使用不同大小和方向的物体，这些物体呈现在中央或周边视野中。两组之间的动作持续时间没有差异。然而，年长参与者需要更长的接近阶段，并且表现出不同的抓握策略，其特征是与年轻成年人相比，握距更大且手腕旋转的百分比更小。当抓握周边视野中呈现的物体时，年长成年人的准确性下降，但抓握中央视野中的物体时则不然。两组均观察到与抓握以移动相比，抓握以使用时运动学参数的类似调节，即计划和执行阶段更长，这表明在更具目标导向的任务中，衰老的影响可能会最小化并得到补偿。
