Neck Muscle Vibration Alters Upper Limb Proprioception as Demonstrated by Changes in Accuracy and Precision during an Elbow Repositioning Task

Abstract

Upper limb control depends on accurate internal models of limb position relative to the head and neck, accurate sensory inputs, and accurate cortical processing. Transient alterations in neck afferent feedback induced by muscle vibration may impact upper limb proprioception. This research aimed to determine the effects of neck muscle vibration on upper limb proprioception using a novel elbow repositioning task (ERT). 26 right-handed participants aged 22.21 ± 2.64 performed the ERT consisting of three target angles between 80–90° (T1), 90–100° (T2) and 100–110° (T3). Controls (CONT) (n = 13, 6F) received 10 min of rest and the vibration group (VIB) (n = 13, 6F) received 10 min of 60 Hz vibration over the right sternocleidomastoid and left cervical extensor muscles. Task performance was reassessed following experimental manipulation. Significant time by group interactions occurred for T1: (F1,24 = 25.330, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.513) where CONT improved by 26.08% and VIB worsened by 134.27%, T2: (F1,24 = 16.157, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.402) where CONT improved by 20.39% and VIB worsened by 109.54%, and T3: (F1,24 = 21.923, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.447) where CONT improved by 37.11% and VIB worsened by 54.39%. Improvements in repositioning accuracy indicates improved proprioceptive ability with practice in controls. Decreased accuracy following vibration suggests that vibration altered proprioceptive inputs used to construct body schema, leading to inaccurate joint position sense and the observed changes in elbow repositioning accuracy.

Pointing in cervical dystonia patients

“…Although the significance level ( p = 0.035) of this result is just below 0.05, its power is very high (almost one) and supports its reliability. The larger pointing bias in CD patients suggested by the present study, cannot arise from a proprioceptive disruption related to the abnormal neck input ( Tabbert et al, 2022 ), since it was observed only for a specific pointing direction (left targets), while a difficulty in arm control should be evident in all the sectors of the workspace. Moreover it was independent upon the dystonia severity, as well as upon the direction of head rotation/neck hypertonus.…”

“…It is possible, therefore, that a similar phenomenon occurs in CD patients, making movement planning and execution more difficult. Finally it has to be mentioned that an altered neck proprioceptive input may get worse the limb position sense ( Tabbert et al, 2022 ), possibly leading to a movement impairment which could account for the increase in DEV observed in CD patients.…”

“…Third, we compared CD patients and control subjects only in their resting condition, where CD patients, but not control subjects, showed a strong asymmetry in proprioceptive neck input. Comparison of CD patients with control subjects keeping rotated head postures as a consequence of neck vibration ( Tabbert et al, 2022 ) would have allowed to disentangle between-group differences related to chronic brain changes, rather than to the resting neck posture. This problem has to be addressed by further experiments and may clarified relevant pathophysiological aspects in CD.…”

“…Egocentric body representation, relaying on proprioceptive input, seems to be altered in CD patients ( Müller et al, 2005 ), who favour the use of allocentric reference frames in spatial localization tasks ( Ploner et al, 2005 ). Moreover, it is known that vibratory stimuli applied to the neck muscles, inducing the turned head posture occurring in CD patients, get worse the perception of elbow position, a phenomenon which may impair arm movement control ( Tabbert et al, 2022 ).…”

Cervical proprioception in Parkinson's disease and its correlation with manual dexterity function

“…It also contributes to the control of balance, postural control, head position and fine motor skills in tasks that require precise movements of the neck and upper body. 9,10,37,38 Therefore, changes in head and neck position may affect the perceived position of body parts relative to each other, the perception of the target position, and/ or the perception of body position by causing changes in proprioceptive afferent information. 13 Knox and Hodges 13 showed that changes in head and neck position in the absence of visual cues in healthy individuals affect the processing of afferent sensory inputs and may alter elbow proprioception.…”