ORCID
- Howard, Ian: 0000-0002-6041-9669
Abstract
Rapid learning can be critical to ensure elite performance in a changing world or to recover basic movement after neural injuries. Recently it was shown that the variability of follow-through movements afects the rate of motor memory formation. Here we investigate if lead-in movement has a similar efect on learning rate. We hypothesized that both modality and variability of lead-in movement would play critical roles, with simulations suggesting that only changes in active lead-in variability would exhibit slower learning. We tested this experimentally using a two-movement paradigm, with either visual or active initial lead-in movements preceeding a second movement performed in a force feld. As predicted, increasing active lead-in variability reduced the rate of motor adaptation, whereas changes in visual lead-in variability had little efect. This demonstrates that distinct neural tuning activity is induced by diferent lead-in modalities, subsequently infuencing the access to, and switching between, distinct motor memories.
DOI
10.1038/s41598-017-05697-z
Publication Date
2017-08-10
Publication Title
Scientific Reports
ISSN
2045-2322
Organisational Unit
School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics
Recommended Citation
Howard, I. S., Ford, C., Cangelosi, A., & Franklin, D. (2017) 'Active lead-in variability affects motor memory formation and slows motor learning', Scientific Reports, . Available at: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-05697-z
