The effect of unilateral hand contractions on psychophysiological activity during motor performance: Evidence of verbal-analytical engagement

Abstract

Objectives: Conscious engagement in movement control can influence motor performance.In most cases, the left hemisphere of the brain plays an important role in verbal-analytical processing and reasoning, so changes in the balance of hemispheric activation may influence conscious engagement in movement. Evidence suggests that unilateral hand contractions influence hemispheric activation, but no study has investigated whether there is an associated effect of hand contractions on verbal-analytical processing and psychophysiological activity during motor performance. This study was designed to examine whether pre-performance unilateral hand contraction protocols change verbal-analytical involvement and psychophysiological activity during motor performance. Design: A repeated measures crossover design was employed. Methods: Twenty-eight participants completed three hand contraction protocols in a randomised order: left, right and no-hand contractions. Electroencephalography (EEG) measures of hemispheric asymmetry were computed during hand contractions. A golf putting task was conducted after each protocol. EEG connectivity between sites overlying the left verbal-analytical temporal region (T7) and the motor planning region (Fz) was computed for the 3-sec prior to movement initiation. Additionally, electrocardiography (ECG) and electromyography (EMG) signals were analysed 6-sec prior to movement initiation until 6-sec after. Golf putting performance was obtained by distance from the target and putter swing kinematics. Results: Contralateral hemisphere activity was revealed for the left and right-hand contraction conditions. During motor planning, the lefthand contraction protocol led to significantly lower T7-Fz connectivity, and the right-hand contraction protocol led to significantly higher T7-Fz connectivity than the other conditions. EMG, ECG and kinematic measures did not differ as a function of condition. Importantly, T7-Fz connectivity mediated the relationship between hand squeezing and motor performance (distance from the target). Conclusion: The EEG results suggest that pre-3 performance unilateral hand contractions influence the extent of verbal-analytical engagement in motor planning, which in turn influences motor performance. However, the hand contractions did not influence cardiac activity, muscle activity or kinematics.

Effects of unilateral dynamic handgrip on reaction time and error rate

“…They did not find any difference in the emotional perception of photographs from either unilateral (intrahemispheric) or bilateral (interhemispheric) hemispheres as a function of hand contraction. Our findings also compare well with those of Hoskens et al (2020), who reported that contralateral hemisphere activity was revealed for left-versus right-hand contraction conditions. Specifically, left-hand contractions rather than right-hand contractions led to significantly lower T7-Fz connectivity, indicating brain regions involved in conscious engagement in movement control and motor performance during motor planning.…”

“…In this study, we investigated the effects of dynamic handgrip on perceptual-motor task performance by assessing speed (RT) and accuracy (error rate) of the response to stimuli in SRT and CRT tasks in the final cohort of 64 right-handed participants. Previous neural and behavioral studies found prevention of performance decrements or even increases in performance on motor tasks with dynamic handgrip (Beckmann et al 2013;Hoskens et al 2020). However, RTs and error rates in perceptual-motor tasks have not yet been addressed with this embodiment technique.…”

Preventing a loss of accuracy of the tennis serve under pressure

“…However, EEG studies [21,22] showed that the hand clenching does not produce a shift of activation from the left to the right brain hemisphere but triggers relaxation (high alpha wave) that spreads across the whole cortex, producing a state of reduced cortical activity in the left brain hemisphere. In line with this, Hoskens et al [23] argue that an engagement in movement control is associated with verbal-analytical processing (i.e., the planning and reasoning of an action framed in words). They further show that unilateral hand contractions influence the extent of this verbal-analytical engagement during motor planning, which in turn influences motor performance.…”

EEG correlates of verbal and conscious processing of motor control in sport and human movement: a systematic review

“…Of the five studies that examined performance accuracy, two found lower T7-Fz connectivity for more accurate performance (Cheng et al, 2017;, and three found no difference between accurate and inaccurate performances (Dyke et al, 2014;Hunt et al, 2013;van Duijn et al, 2017). One study experimentally decreased T7-Fz using pre-performance hand contractions, but this had no significant effect on performance or kinematics (Hoskens et al, 2020).…”

“…Other studies used verbal recall protocols that asked participants what they were thinking about during the task (Daou et al, 2018;van Duijn et al, 2019;Zhu et al, 2011a, exp. 2), eye tracking to correlate EEG activity and eye movement behaviors (Parr et al, 2019) and measures of cardiac activity as markers of conscious control (Bellomo et al, 2020). Despite conscious control being related to changes in movement kinematics (e.g., increased movement jerk and slower movements) only three studies used kinematics to show how verbal processing impacted upon movement control (i.e., Bellomo et al 2020;Parr et al, 2020;Hoskens et al, 2020). While the adoption of such methods is encouraging, it is clear that a large proportion of work in this area simply infers verbal processing from left-temporal alpha activity coupled with poorer learning and performance.…”