Faculty Collaboration Database

Lack of interlimb transfer following visuomotor adaptation in a person with congenital mirror movements. Neuropsychologia 2020 Jan;136:107265

Date

11/19/2019

Pubmed ID

31738940

DOI

10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2019.107265

Scopus ID

2-s2.0-85075264848 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site)   5 Citations

Abstract

Congenital mirror movements (CMMs) have been traditionally thought to occur due to the corticospinal tracts that project abnormally to both sides of the body. More recently, it has been suggested that both brain hemispheres are activated during intended unilateral movements due to deficient transcallosal inhibition, leading to mirror movements on the unintended side as well. To further understand the mechanisms underlying CMMs, we examined the pattern of interlimb transfer following visuomotor adaptation in 'DB', an individual with CMMs. DB's CMMs were confirmed by detecting EMG signals in both arms during intended unilateral movements, and also when transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was applied to the motor cortex. Following that, DB performed reaching movements with the left arm under a visuomotor condition in which the visual display was rotated 30° counterclockwise about the start circle, and then with the right arm under the same (experiment 1) or opposing (experiment 2) rotation condition. DB's performances were compared with the data from control subjects. In both experiments, DB was able to adapt to the rotation with either arm; however, movement errors at the beginning of right-arm adaptation did not differ from those at the beginning of left-arm adaptation, indicating no transfer. These transfer patterns differ from those observed in controls, who demonstrated substantial transfer when the rotation directions were the same between the arms, but no transfer when they were opposite. These findings suggest that in DB, both hemispheres are activated during unilateral movements, but interhemispheric communication is impaired, thus resulting in mirror movements on the involuntary side.

Author List

Bao S, Morgan AM, Lei Y, Wang J

Author

Jinsung Wang PhD Assistant Professor in the Human Movement Sciences department at University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee

MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold

Adaptation, Physiological
Adolescent
Adult
Arm
Functional Laterality
Humans
Male
Motor Activity
Motor Cortex
Movement Disorders
Psychomotor Performance
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
Young Adult