Morin-Moncet Olivier, Therrien-Blanchet Jean-Marc, Ferland Marie C, Théoret Hugo, West Greg L
Department of Psychology, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada.
Hôpital Sainte-Justine Research Center, Montréal, Canada.
PLoS One. 2016 Dec 22;11(12):e0169013. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0169013. eCollection 2016.
Action video game playing is associated with improved visuomotor performance; however, the underlying neural mechanisms associated with this increased performance are not well understood. Using the Serial Reaction Time Task in conjunction with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, we investigated if improved visuomotor performance displayed in action video game players (actionVGPs) was associated with increased corticospinal plasticity in primary motor cortex (M1) compared to non-video game players (nonVGPs). Further, we assessed if actionVGPs and nonVGPs displayed differences in procedural motor learning as measured by the SRTT. We found that at the behavioral level, both the actionVGPs and nonVGPs showed evidence of procedural learning with no significant difference between groups. However, the actionVGPs displayed higher visuomotor performance as evidenced by faster reaction times in the SRTT. This observed enhancement in visuomotor performance amongst actionVGPs was associated with increased corticospinal plasticity in M1, as measured by corticospinal excitability changes pre- and post- SRTT and corticospinal excitability at rest before motor practice. Our results show that aVGPs, who are known to have better performance on visual and motor tasks, also display increased corticospinal excitability after completing a novel visuomotor task.
玩动作电子游戏与视觉运动表现的改善有关；然而，与这种表现提升相关的潜在神经机制尚未得到充分理解。我们结合使用序列反应时任务和经颅磁刺激，研究了与非电子游戏玩家（nonVGPs）相比，动作电子游戏玩家（actionVGPs）所表现出的视觉运动表现改善是否与初级运动皮层（M1）中皮质脊髓可塑性增加有关。此外，我们评估了actionVGPs和nonVGPs在通过序列反应时任务（SRTT）测量的程序性运动学习方面是否存在差异。我们发现，在行为层面，actionVGPs和nonVGPs都显示出程序性学习的证据，两组之间没有显著差异。然而，actionVGPs表现出更高的视觉运动表现，序列反应时任务中的更快反应时间证明了这一点。actionVGPs中观察到的视觉运动表现增强与M1中皮质脊髓可塑性增加有关，这通过序列反应时任务前后的皮质脊髓兴奋性变化以及运动练习前静息时的皮质脊髓兴奋性来衡量。我们的结果表明，已知在视觉和运动任务上表现更好的actionVGPs在完成一项新的视觉运动任务后也表现出皮质脊髓兴奋性增加。
