Generalization of visuomotor learning between bilateral and unilateral conditions. J Neurophysiol 2009 Nov;102(5):2790-9
Date
09/18/2009Pubmed ID
19759325Pubmed Central ID
PMC2777833DOI
10.1152/jn.00444.2009Scopus ID
2-s2.0-70449412464 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site) 19 CitationsAbstract
A long history of behavioral and physiological research has suggested that bilateral coordination invokes unique neural processes that are not involved in unilateral movements. This hypothesis predicts that motor learning should show limited transfer between unilateral and bilateral conditions, which is consistent with a recent finding that indicated partial, but not complete, transfer of learning between the two conditions. However, during learning of new motor skills, transformations must also be made between visual and proprioceptive coordinate systems, a process that may occur upstream to the processes that differentiate bilateral from unilateral movements. We now investigate whether visuomotor adaptations are shared between unilateral and bilateral movement conditions. Our results indicate substantial transfer from bilateral to subsequent unilateral conditions for both arms. Interestingly, whereas the nondominant arm never showed complete adaptation to visual rotation under bilateral conditions, this interference, or lack of improvement, in bilateral performance did not disturb the visuomotor adaptation process or transfer, as reflected by superb unilateral performances immediately following the bilateral conditions. These findings unambiguously indicate that visuomotor adaptation can extensively generalize between bilateral and unilateral conditions, thus suggesting a substantial overlap in the neural processes underlying visuomotor transformations between the two movement conditions. Our findings provide support for a two-stage model of motor planning, in which the visuomotor transformation process precedes the processes that convert the visuomotor plan into effector-specific commands that incorporate bilateral synergies and that result in the forces that determine motion.
Author List
Wang J, Sainburg RLAuthor
Jinsung Wang PhD Assistant Professor in the Human Movement Sciences department at University of Wisconsin - MilwaukeeMESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold
Adaptation, PhysiologicalAdolescent
Adult
Analysis of Variance
Female
Functional Laterality
Humans
Learning
Male
Movement
Psychomotor Performance
Rotation
Visual Perception
Young Adult
