Proprioceptive control of cyclical bimanual forearm movements across different movement frequencies as revealed by means of tendon vibration

Abstract

The effect of unilateral tendon vibration on the performance of cyclical bimanual forearm movements was investigated across different cycling frequencies (from 0.67 to 2.53 Hz). The spatiotemporal features of the individual limb motions as well as their coordination were studied. Tendon vibration was found to result in a substantial reduction in the amplitude of the vibrated arm, leaving the nonvibrated arm unaffected. The vibration-induced amplitude reduction decreased from 26% to 11% as cycling frequency increased even though significant reductions were still observed at the highest cycling frequencies. Tendon vibration was also found to result in an increase of the phase lead of the dominant arm with respect to the nondominant arm, but this effect was not modulated by cycling frequency. The data argue in favor of a closed-loop mode of movement control during cyclical high-speed movements. It is suggested that kinesthetic afferent information is processed and used to guide action up to near-maximal movement speeds, reinforcing recent claims with respect to visual information processing.

Interference of Various Sources of Sensory Feedback on Transition of Relative Phase in Bimanual Coordination on Active and Inactive Woman With Multiple Sclerosis

“…Stated differently, the reliance on proprioception in performance was evident not only during the performance of the "non-stable" anti-phase patterns but also in the "stable" in-phase patterns, suggesting that bimanual coupling appears to be controlled, for the main part, by proprioceptive information. These findings are largely supported by previous studies where proprioception was either absent [23] or masked [17,26,34].…”

“…The present study also shows that the triceps and anterior deltoid muscle vibration lead to reducing the amplitude of the drawing circles. The vibration of the wrist flexor tendon destroys coordination between the two hands [10,17,34]. This result shows that proprioceptive information plays an essential role in the central nervous system for keeping posture [17].…”

Multi-segmental postural coordination in professional ballet dancers

“…Enhanced stability might be a general feature of the advanced balance skill exhibited by dancers, as dancers have exhibited enhanced neuromuscular responses and proprioceptive sensitivity [1][2][3][4][5][6]. It is unclear whether greater postural coordination stability might be associated with speed of neuromuscular responses, but research does suggest these stability results could be related to enhanced proprioceptive sensitivity [16][17][18][19]. The tracking task entails proprioceptive feedback to establish and maintain reciprocal, functional linkages between the various muscles and joints and our results are consistent with the hypothesis of a direct relation between proprioceptive sensitivity and coordination stability, although this must be further examined.…”

“…2 This sensitivity should associate with greater coordination stability, as proprioception is known to play an important role in the establishment of linkages among components of coordinative structures thereby enhancing neuromuscular control, particularly in multi-joint coordination [16][17][18][19]. We tested this hypothesis by requiring participants to stand on a single leg rather than bi-pedally to increase task demands, as previous results indicated that differences between experts and controls may not be apparent when postural demands are minimal [9].…”

Goal synchronization of bimanual skills depends on proprioception

“…Interestingly, the affected arm was unimpaired in unimanual tasks [5]. In bimanual rhythmic circling movements, vibratory stimuli increased the normal delay between the leading dominant hand and the non-dominant hand [11].…”