Neuroscience Graduate Program, Graduate Division of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, United States of America.
Division of Physical Therapy, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2022 Oct 14;17(10):e0276060. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0276060. eCollection 2022.
Learning to sequence movements is necessary for skillful interaction with the environment. Neuroplasticity, particularly long-term potentiation (LTP), within sensorimotor networks underlies the acquisition of motor skill. Short-term immobilization of the arm, even less than 12 hours, can reduce corticospinal excitability and increase the capacity for LTP-like plasticity within the contralateral primary motor cortex. However, it is still unclear whether short-term immobilization influences motor skill acquisition. The current study aimed to evaluate the effect of short-term arm immobilization on implicit, sequence-specific motor skill acquisition using a modified Serial Reaction Time Task (SRTT). Twenty young, neurotypical adults underwent a single SRTT training session after six hours of immobilization of the non-dominant arm or an equivalent period of no immobilization. Our results demonstrated that participants improved SRTT performance overall after training, but there was no evidence of an effect of immobilization prior to task training on performance improvement. Further, improvements on the SRTT were not sequence-specific. Taken together, motor skill acquisition for sequential, individuated finger movements improved following training but the effect of six hours of immobilization was difficult to discern.
学习序列运动对于与环境进行熟练交互是必要的。感觉运动网络中的神经可塑性，特别是长时程增强（LTP），是运动技能获得的基础。手臂的短期固定，即使不到 12 小时，也会降低皮质脊髓兴奋性，并增加对侧初级运动皮层中类似 LTP 的可塑性的能力。然而，目前尚不清楚短期固定是否会影响运动技能的获得。本研究旨在使用改良的序列反应时间任务（SRTT）评估短期手臂固定对隐式、序列特异性运动技能获得的影响。20 名年轻的、神经典型的成年人在非优势手臂固定 6 小时或等效的无固定时间后，进行了单次 SRTT 训练。我们的结果表明，参与者在训练后整体上提高了 SRTT 表现，但在任务训练前固定手臂对表现改善没有影响的证据。此外，SRTT 的改善不是序列特异性的。总的来说，对于顺序的、个体化的手指运动的运动技能习得在训练后得到了提高，但 6 小时的固定效果很难察觉。
