Proactive Motor Control Research Articles

The effect of visual statistical learning on proactive motor control is modulated by transcranial random noise stimulation over frontoparietal cortex.

The effect of visual statistical learning on proactive motor control is modulated by transcranial random noise stimulation over frontoparietal cortex.

Proactive motor control within and between hands: Effects of age, motor set, and cue type

Several studies have reported that proactive motor control in a cued four-finger choice reaction task proceeds more efficiently with a 2-hands motor set (two fingers on each hand) than with a 1-hand motor set (four fingers on one hand). According to the Grouping Model, this is because the 2-hands motor set recruits distinct left and right hand representations located in separate cerebral hemispheres, whereas the 1-hand motor set recruits partially overlapping neural areas grouped together in one hemisphere. The latter neural organization increases neuromotor noise, thereby complicating proactive motor selection. The present study examined the effect of older age on the 2-hands motor selection advantage. A group of young and a group of older adults performed two proactive motor tasks—the procue task and the anticue task—with two motor sets: a 2-hands and 1-hand set. Predictive cues preceded the target signal at five different time intervals (100–850 ms), allowing advance selection of 2 out of 4 fingers. Older adults showed longer reaction times and smaller cueing benefits compared to younger adults. Overall, cueing benefits were greater, and accrued faster, with the 2-hands than with the 1-hand motor set, reflecting the beneficial impact of the neuroanatomical hand distinction. Importantly, the 2-hands advantage was substantially greater in the older age group, suggesting that the hand distinction might abate age-related neural dedifferentiation. These findings highlight the impact of cortical representational distinctiveness in proactive motor control, especially in older age.

Should I stay or should I go? How local-global implicit temporal expectancy shapes proactive motor control: An hdEEG study

In this study, we investigated the effect of global temporal prediction on the brain capability to implicitly adjust proactive motor control. We used the Dynamic Temporal Prediction (DTP), in which local and global predictions of an imperative stimulus were manipulated by using different stimulus-onset asynchronies (SOAs), presented with several distribution probabilities. At a behavioural level, the results show a performance adjustment (reaction time decrease) depending on the implicit use of global prediction. At a neurophysiological level, three separate computational steps underlying motor control were investigated. First, the expectancy implementation was associated with global probability-dependent contingent negative variation (CNV) modulation supported by the recruitment of a frontoparietal network involving the anterior cingulate, the left intraparietal sulcus, the occipital, and the premotor areas. Second, the response implementation was modulated by the global prediction fostering stimulus processing (P3 increase) at the motor response level, as suggested by both oscillatory (beta desynchronization), as well as source analysis (frontal cortical network). Third, the expectancy violation lead to a negativity increase (omission-detection potential) time locked to the global rule violation and additionally, to delta and theta power increase interpreted as inhibitory control and rule violation detection, respectively. The expectancy violation further engaged a left lateralized network including the temporal parietal junction (TPJ) and the motor cortex, suggesting involvement of attentional reorienting and a motor adjustment. Finally, these findings provide new insights on the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying proactive motor control, suggesting an overlapping between implicit and explicit processes.

The Effect of Probabilistic Context on Implicit Temporal Expectations in Down Syndrome.

One of the most important sources of predictability that human beings can exploit to create an internal representation of the external environment is the ability to implicitly build up subjective statistics of events’ temporal structure and, consequently, use this knowledge to prepare for future actions. Stimulus expectancy can be subjectively shaped by hierarchically nested sources of prediction, capitalizing on either local or global probabilistic rules. In order to better understand the nature of local-global proactive motor control in Down Syndrome, in the present study a group of participants with Down Syndrome (DS group; n = 28; mean age 29.5 ± 13 years; range 10–54) and a group of typically developing participants matched by either gender or mental age (TD-MA group; n = 28; 5.6 ± 1 years; range 4–8) were administered a novel motor preparation task, defined as the Dynamic Temporal Prediction (DTP) task. In the DTP, the temporal preparation to imperative stimuli is implicitly shaped by the local increase of expectancy. This is manipulated trial-by-trial as a function of the preparatory foreperiod interval (Stimulus-Onset Asynchrony or SOA). In addition, temporal preparation can be also implicitly adjusted as a function of global predictive context, so that a block-wise SOA-distribution bias toward a given preparatory interval might determine a high-order source of expectancy, with functional consequences on proactive motor control adjustment. Results showed that in both groups motor preparation was biased by temporal expectancy when this was locally manipulated within-trials. By contrast, only the TD-MA group was sensitive to global rule changes: only in this cohort was behavioral performance overall impacted by the SOA probabilistic distribution manipulated between-blocks. The evidence of a local-global dissociation in DS suggests that the use of flexible cognitive mechanisms to implicitly extract high-order probabilistic rules in order to build-up an internal model of the temporal properties of events is disrupted in this developmental disorder. Moreover, since the content of the information to be processed in the DTP task was neither verbal nor spatial, we suggest that atypical global processing in Down Syndrome is a domain-general rather than specific aspect characterizing the cognitive profile of this population.

Anticipation modulates neuromechanics of drop jumps in known or unknown ground stiffness.

With an emphasis on ballistic movements, an accurately anticipated neural control is an essential prerequisite to deliver a motor response coincidentally with the event of ground contact. This study investigated how previous knowledge of the ground condition affects proactive and reactive motor control in drop jumps (DJ). Thereby, human anticipatory capacity of muscle activation was investigated regarding neuromuscular activation, joint kinematics and peak forces associated with DJ performance. In 18 subjects, the effect of knowledge of two different surface conditions during DJs was evaluated. Peak force, ground-contact-time (GCT), rate of force development (RFD) and jump height were assessed. Electromyographic (EMG) activities of the m. soleus (SOL) and gastrocnemius medialis (GM) were assessed for 150ms before (PRE) and during ground contact (GC) for the short-, medium-, and long-latency responses. Ankle and knee joint kinematics were recorded in the sagittal plane.In the unknown conditions peak force, RFD and jump height declined, GCT was prolonged, proactive EMG activity (PRE) in SOL and GM was diminished (P<0.05). During GC, a decline in EMG activity in the unknown condition was manifested for SOL and GM for the SLR, MLR and LLR (P<0.05). Ankle and knee joint deflections during GC were increased in the unknown vs. known condition (P<0.05). Peak force, RFD and jump height were positively correlated to GM-EMG in PRE, SLR, MLR and LLR (P<0.05). Results revealed that proactive and reactive modulations in muscle activity prior and during GC are interrelated to the force-time characteristics and height of the jumps. The unknown condition revealed a comparable neuromuscular activity during pre-activation for both conditions, followed by an inhibition in the subsequent phase after touch down. These findings underline that anticipation is a determining factor influencing timing and adjustment of motor responses to accomplish ballistic movements regarding precision and performance.

Ready for change: Oscillatory mechanisms of proactive motor control.

Proactive motor control is a preparatory mechanism facilitating upcoming action inhibition or adaptation. Previous studies investigating proactive motor control mostly focused on response inhibition, as in the classical go-nogo or stop-signal tasks. However, everyday life rarely calls for the complete suppression of actions without subsequent behavioral adjustment. Therefore, we conducted a modified cued go-nogo-change task, in which cues indicated whether participants might have to change to an alternative action or inhibit the response to an upcoming target. Based on the dual-mechanisms of control framework and using electroencephalography (EEG), we investigated the role of the sensorimotor cortex and of prefrontal regions in preparing to change and cancel motor responses. We focused on mu and beta power over sensorimotor cortex ipsi- and contralateral to an automatic motor response and on prefrontal beta power. Over ipsilateral sensorimotor cortex, mu and beta power was relatively decreased when anticipating to change or inhibit the automatic motor behavior. Moreover, alpha phase coupling between ipsilateral motor cortex and prefrontal areas decreased when preparing to change, suggesting a decoupling of sensorimotor regions from prefrontal control. When the standard motor action actually had to be changed, prefrontal beta power increased, reflecting enhanced cognitive control. Our data highlight the role of the ipsilateral motor cortex in preparing to inhibit and change upcoming motor actions. Here, especially mu power and phase coupling seem to be critical to guide upcoming behavior.

Foresight beats hindsight: The neural correlates underlying motor preparation in the pro-/anti-cue paradigm.

BackgroundHuman motor behaviors are characterized by both, reactive and proactive mechanisms. Yet, studies investigating the neural correlates of motor behavior almost exclusively focused on reactive motor processes. Here, we employed the pro‐/anti‐cue motor preparation paradigm to systematically study proactive motor control in an imaging environment. In this paradigm, either pro‐ or anti‐cues are presented in a blocked design. Four fingers (two from each hand) are mapped onto four visual target locations. Visual targets require a speeded response by one corresponding finger, but, most importantly, they are preceded by visual cues that are congruent (“pro‐cue”), incongruent (“anti‐cue”), or neutral with respect to the responding hand. With short cue‐target intervals, congruence effects are based on automatic motor priming of the correct hand (in case of pro‐cues) or incorrect hand (in case of anti‐cues), generating, respectively, reaction time benefits or reaction time costs relative to the neutral‐cue. With longer cue‐target intervals, slower top‐down processes become effective, transforming early anti‐cue interference into late anti‐cue facilitation.MethodsWe adapted this paradigm to be compatible with neuroimaging, tested and validated it behaviorally—both inside and outside the imaging environment—and implemented it in a whole‐brain functional magnetic resonance imaging study.Results and ConclusionOur imaging results indicate that pro‐cues elicited much less neural activation than did anti‐cues, the latter recruiting well‐known cognitive top‐down networks related to attention, response inhibition, and error monitoring/signaling, thereby revealing high‐level influences on proactive motor processes.

The effect of proactive motor control on impulsive gambling and eating behaviour

Event Abstract Back to Event The effect of proactive motor control on impulsive gambling and eating behaviour Chris Chambers1* 1 Cardiff University, United Kingdom Background Response inhibition or ‘impulse control’ is a hallmark of flexible and intelligent behaviour, required whenever a thought or action must be stopped or restrained. Existing evidence suggests that linked or common mechanisms may coordinate response inhibition in multiple domains, although evidence for causal links has emerged only recently. Methods and Results I will discuss some of our recent studies that explored the causal relationship between motor response inhibition and different forms of impulsive decision-making. In a series of studies we have found that performing a stop-signal task – which induces cautious motor responding – reduced gambling in a multitask situation. We also found that a short period of inhibitory training reduced gambling at least two hours later in time. Our most recent experiments have shown that the effects of inhibition training can transfer to eating behaviour, reducing the tendency to make unhealthy choices. Discussion Overall, our findings converge with work in other labs to indicate that proactive motor control interacts strongly with decision-making. This link between different levels of cognitive control might be exploited as an adjunct to existing rehabilitation methods in addiction. Keywords: response inhibition, cognitive control, risk-taking behaviour, stop-signal task, go-nogo task, eating behaviour Conference: ACNS-2013 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Society Conference, Clayton, Melbourne, Australia, 28 Nov - 1 Dec, 2013. Presentation Type: Oral Topic: Executive Processes Citation: Chambers C (2013). The effect of proactive motor control on impulsive gambling and eating behaviour. Conference Abstract: ACNS-2013 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Society Conference. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2013.212.00190 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 15 Oct 2013; Published Online: 25 Nov 2013. * Correspondence: Dr. Chris Chambers, Cardiff University, Cardiff, CF24 4LP, United Kingdom, sorrynotavailableatm@gmail.com Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Chris Chambers Google Chris Chambers Google Scholar Chris Chambers PubMed Chris Chambers Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

Proactive Motor Control Reduces Monetary Risk Taking in Gambling

Less supervision by the executive system after disruption of the right prefrontal cortex leads to increased risk taking in gambling because superficially attractive—but risky—choices are not suppressed. Similarly, people might gamble more in multitask situations than in single-task situations because concurrent executive processes usually interfere with each other. In the study reported here, we used a novel monetary decision-making paradigm to investigate whether multitasking could reduce rather than increase risk taking in gambling. We found that performing a task that induced cautious motor responding reduced gambling in a multitask situation (Experiment 1). We then found that a short period of inhibitory training lessened risk taking in gambling at least 2 hr later (Experiments 2 and 3). Our findings indicate that proactive motor control strongly affects monetary risk taking in gambling. The link between control systems at different cognitive levels might be exploited to develop new methods for rehabilitation of addiction and impulse-control disorders.