In: Neuropsychologia, 2019, vol. 124, p. 202–207
Motor interference can be observed when two motor tasks are learnt in subsequent order. The aim of the current study was to test two approaches potentially mitigating interference effects. The first approach used contextual colour cues requiring only little cognitive attention thus being assumed to be primarily implicit while the second, mental practice/rehearsal that demands much more active...
|
In: Neuroscience, 2019, vol. 401, p. 35–42
Intracortical inhibitory modulation seems crucial for an intact motor control and motor learning. However, the influence of long(er) term training on short-interval intracortical inhibition (SICI) is scarcely investigated. With respect to balance, it was previously shown that with increasing postural task difficulty, SICI decreased but the effect of balance training (BT) is unknown. The...
|
In: European Review of Aging and Physical Activity, 2019, vol. 16, no. 1, p. 2
The aging process alters upright posture and locomotion control from an automatically processed to a more cortically controlled one. The present study investigated a postural-cognitive dual-task paradigm in young and older adults using functional Near- Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS).Methods: Twenty healthy participants (10 older adults 72 ± 3 y, 10 young adults 23 ± 3 y) performed a...
|
In: Journal of Neurophysiology, 2018, vol. 120, no. 3, p. 1010–1016
Cortical excitability increases during the performance of more difficult postural tasks. However, it is possible that changes in postural threat associated with more difficult tasks may in themselves lead to alterations in the neural strategies underlying postural control. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine whether changes in postural threat are responsible for the...
|
In: Human Movement Science, 2018, vol. 59, p. 170–177
Postural control undergoes rapid changes during child development. However, the influence of balance training (BT) on the compensation of perturbations has not yet been investigated in children. For this purpose, young (6.7 ± 0.6 years) and old children (12.0 ± 0.4 years) were exposed to externally induced anticipated (direction known) and non-anticipated (direction unknown)...
|
In: Brain Stimulation, 2018, p. -
Background: Motor imagery and actual movements share overlapping activation of brain areas but little is known about task-specific activation of distinct motor pathways during mental simulation of movements. For real contractions, it was demonstrated that the slow(er) motor pathways are activated differently in ballistic compared to tonic contractions but it is unknown if this also holds true...
|
In: Neural Plasticity, 2018, p. -
|
In: Neuroscience, 2018, vol. 373, p. 106–112
Research has indicated that at the onset of a finger movement, unwanted contractions of adjacent muscles are prevented by inhibiting the cortical areas representing these muscles. This so-called surround inhibition (SI) seems relevant for the performance of selective finger movements but may not be necessary for tasks involving functional coupling between different finger muscles. Therefore,...
|
In: Neural Plasticity, 2018, p. -
Age-related changes in brain activation other than in the primary motor cortex are not well known with respect to dynamic balance control. Therefore, the current study aimed to explore age-related differences in the control of static and dynamic postural tasks using fMRI during mental simulation of balance tasks. For this purpose, 16 elderly (72 ± 5 years) and 16 young adults...
|
In: Scientific Reports, 2018, vol. 8, no. 1, p. 1085
To further investigate the mechanism of surround inhibition (SI) and to determine whether adopting different attentional strategies might have an impact on the modulation of SI, the effects of adopting an external (EF) or internal focus of attention (IF) on SI and motor performance were investigated. While performing an index flexion with either an EF or IF, transcranial magnetic stimulation...
|