Abstract
Voluntary rhythmic movements, such as, for example, locomotion and other cyclic tasks, are fundamental during everyday life. Patients with impaired neural or motor function often take part in rehabilitation programs, which include rhythmic movements. Therefore, it is imperative to have the best possible understanding of control and behaviour of human voluntary rhythmic movements. A behavioural phenomenon termed repeated bout rate enhancement has been established as an increase of the freely chosen index finger tapping frequency during the second of two consecutive tapping bouts. The present study investigated whether the phenomenon would be elicited when the first bout consisted of imposed passive finger tapping or air tapping. These two forms of tapping were applied since they can be performed without descending drive (passive tapping) and without afferent feedback related to impact (air tapping) – as compared to tapping on a surface. Healthy individuals (n = 33) performed 3-min tapping bouts separated by 10 min rest. Surface electromyographic, kinetic, and kinematic data were recorded. Supportive experiments were made to measure, for example, the cortical sensory evoked potential (SEP) response during the three different forms of tapping. Results showed that tapping frequencies in the second of two consecutive bouts increased by 12.9 ± 14.8% (p < 0.001), 9.9 ± 6.0% (p = 0.001), and 16.8 ± 13.6% (p = 0.005) when the first bout had consisted of tapping, passive tapping, and air tapping, respectively. Rate enhancement occurred without increase in muscle activation. Besides, the rate enhancements occurred despite that tapping, as compared with passive tapping and air tapping, resulted in different cortical SEP responses. Based on the present findings, it can be suggested that sensory feedback in an initial bout increases the excitability of the spinal central pattern generators involved in finger tapping. This can eventually explain the phenomenon of repeated bout rate enhancement seen after a consecutive bout of finger tapping.
Highlights
Voluntary rhythmic movement is a fundamental part of everyday human life
A general understanding concerning the organization of the nervous system and the function of voluntary rhythmic movement is that these are a result of interactions between supraspinal centres, spinal central pattern generators (CPGs), and sensory feedback (Dimitrijevic et al, 1998; Zehr and Duysens, 2004; Grillner, 2009)
The present study revealed that three different types of finger tapping elicited repeated bout rate enhancement
Summary
Voluntary rhythmic movement is a fundamental part of everyday human life. For example, healthy individuals perform rhythmic movement during locomotion and other cyclic tasks. Studies applying reflex modulation during, for example, arm cycling and pedalling (Zehr et al, 2007; Hundza and Zehr, 2009), voluntary pedalling (Sakamoto et al, 2007; Hansen and Ohnstad, 2008; Stang et al, 2016), and finger tapping (Shima et al, 2011; Hansen et al, 2015; MoraJensen et al, 2017) have been performed Such studies reflect that investigation of CPG-mediated voluntary rhythmic movement in humans is challenged by the restricted access to the spinal cord (Dietz, 2003; Zehr, 2005). It has been argued that analysis of motor behaviour can be used to increase our understanding of the nervous system’s organization and function (Goulding, 2009; Schlinger, 2015)
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