Neck muscle fatigue alters upper limb proprioception

Abstract

Limb proprioception is an awareness by the central nervous system (CNS) of the location of a limb in three-dimensional space and is essential for movement and postural control. The CNS uses the position of the head and neck when interpreting the position of the upper limb, and altered input from neck muscles may affect the sensory inputs to the CNS and consequently may impair the awareness of upper limb joint position. The purpose of this study was to determine whether fatigue of the cervical extensors muscles (CEM) using a submaximal fatigue protocol alters the ability to recreate a previously presented elbow angle with the head in a neutral position. Twelve healthy individuals participated. CEM activity was examined bilaterally using surface electromyography, and kinematics of the elbow joint was measured. The fatigue protocol included an isometric neck extension task at 70 % of maximum until failure. Joint position error increased following fatigue, demonstrating a significant main effect of time (F 2, 18 = 19.41, p ≤ 0.0001) for absolute error. No significant differences were found for variable error (F 2, 18 = 0.27, p = 0.76) or constant error (F 2, 18 = 1.16 of time, p ≤ 0.33). This study confirms that fatigue of the CEM can reduce the accuracy of elbow joint position matching. This suggests that altered afferent input from the neck subsequent to fatigue may impair upper limb proprioception.

Sustained Isometric Wrist Flexion and Extension Maximal Voluntary Contractions Similarly Impair Hand-Tracking Accuracy in Young Adults Using a Wrist Robot

“…Finally, extensive evidence has demonstrated that fatigue results in significant joint position sense impairment (Carpenter et al, 1998;Pedersen et al, 1999;Björklund et al, 2003;Roberts et al, 2003). This impairment arises from numerous factors, including, but not limited to, decreased discharge rate of muscle spindles (Macefield et al, 1991), decreased activity of golgi tendon organs (Hutton and Nelson, 1986), and alterations in central pathways (Sharpe and Miles, 1993;Zabihhosseinian et al, 2015). The extent to which co-contraction and proprioception may have influenced the findings of the present study is unclear, and future investigations quantifying these measures at the forearm would add valuable insight.…”

Effect of Maximal Anaerobic Loading on Lower Extremity Proprioceptive Sense in Soccer Players

“…Proprioception was tested first when the subject were at rest and then after they exercised on an isokinetic test machine until they were fatigued and it was finally reported that fatigue cause a decrease in the proprioceptive sense. Zabihhosseinian et. al (2015) believe that upper extremity proprioception may deteriorate after fatigue.…”

Dynamic Wrist Flexion and Extension Fatigue Induced via Submaximal Contractions Similarly Impairs Hand Tracking Accuracy in Young Adult Males and Females

“…Using a submaximal dynamic fatigue protocol and a joint positioning task, proprioception was altered in the upper extremity as observed through changes and variability in end-point position (Vafadar et al, 2012). Even more proximal fatigue, such as at the cervical extensors, showed decrements in joint position sense and proprioception in the upper limb (Zabihhosseinian et al, 2015). Similar work using the WristBot and a fatiguing protocol showed decrements in proprioceptive ability after a fatiguing task at the wrist (Mugnosso et al, 2019).…”