Abstract
Fatigue due to physical exertion is a ubiquitous phenomenon in everyday life and especially common in a range of neurological diseases. While the effect of fatigue on limiting skill execution are well known, its influence on learning new skills is unclear. This is of particular interest as it is common practice to train athletes, musicians or perform rehabilitation exercises up to and beyond a point of fatigue. In a series of experiments, we describe how muscle fatigue, defined as degradation of maximum force after exertion, impairs motor-skill learning beyond its effects on task execution. The negative effects on learning are evidenced by impaired task acquisition on subsequent practice days even in the absence of fatigue. Further, we found that this effect is in part mediated centrally and can be alleviated by altering motor cortex function. Thus, the common practice of training while, or beyond, fatigue levels should be carefully reconsidered, since this affects overall long-term skill learning.
Highlights
We know from everyday life that, in order to gain and maintain proficiency, the most critical requirement in a motor skill is practice
For instance, fatigue has been described as an overall state linked to changes in motor cortex excitability (Kuppuswamy et al, 2015)
We found that disruptive rTMS to the motor cortex (Cantarero et al, 2013a; Huang et al, 2010) partly alleviates the adverse effects of fatigue on skill learning, suggesting a possible role for maladaptive memory formation under fatigued conditions
Summary
We know from everyday life that, in order to gain and maintain proficiency, the most critical requirement in a motor skill is practice. Repetitive practice is part of rehabilitation approaches to recover function of the motor system and other domains. While repetition improves performance over time, there comes the point when it causes fatigue and eventual degradation of task execution (Boyas and Guevel, 2011; Gandevia et al, 1995b). Studies investigating fatigue have made a distinction between fatigue as a cognitive phenomenon and fatigue as a neuromuscular phenomenon (Janet, 2012), this separation can be blurred at times (Kuppuswamy, 2017). For instance, fatigue has been described as an overall state linked to changes in motor cortex excitability (Kuppuswamy et al, 2015). We use the term fatigue to describe the degradation of maximal force output induced through voluntary physical exertion of task-relevant muscles
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