The Strength of the Movement-related Somatosensory Cortical Oscillations Differ between Adolescents and Adults

Abstract

Adolescents demonstrate increasing mastery of motor actions with age. One prevailing hypothesis is that maturation of the somatosensory system during adolescence contributes to the improved motor control. However, limited efforts have been made to determine if somatosensory cortical processing is different in adolescents during movement. In this study, we used magnetoencephalographic brain imaging to begin addressing this knowledge gap by applying an electrical stimulation to the tibial nerve as adolescents (Age = 14.8 ± 2.5 yrs.) and adults (Age = 36.8 ± 5.0 yrs.) produced an isometric ankle plantarflexion force, or sat with no motor activity. Our results showed strong somatosensory cortical oscillations for both conditions in the alpha-beta (8–30 Hz) and gamma (38–80 Hz) ranges that occurred immediately after the stimulation (0–125 ms), and a beta (18–26 Hz) oscillatory response shortly thereafter (300–400 ms). Compared with the passive condition, all of these frequency specific cortical oscillations were attenuated while producing the ankle force. The attenuation of the alpha-beta response was greater in adolescents, while the adults had a greater attenuation of the beta response. These results imply that altered attenuation of the somatosensory cortical oscillations might be central to the under-developed somatosensory processing and motor performance characteristics in adolescents.

Understanding the Role of Sensorimotor Beta Oscillations

“…An enhanced MRBD has been seen with increasing age both in older adults compared to younger adults (Heinrichs-Graham and Wilson, 2016;Provencher et al, 2016;Espenhahn et al, 2019) and in children compared to adults (Gaetz et al, 2010). MRBD was also found to reduce after motor learning (Gehringer et al, 2019). These studies suggest that concurrent increase in resting beta oscillations and MRBD may make the release of inhibition to initiate movement more difficult with aging.…”

EEG measures of sensorimotor processing and their development are abnormal in children with isolated dystonia and dystonic cerebral palsy

“…It is well-established that levels of motor cortical inhibition are significantly lower in children than adults ( Mall et al, 2004 , Garvey and Mall, 2008 ) and that sensorimotor development continues throughout childhood and well into adolescence ( Quatman-Yates et al, 2012 ). Gehringer et al ( Gehringer et al, 2019 ) demonstrated that adolescents show a more enhanced modulation of alpha–beta cortical oscillations in response to a somatosensory stimulus applied to the lower limb during isometric force production compared with adults ( Gehringer et al, 2019 ). Although our results are not directly comparable with that study since the paradigm and the temporal pattern of activity were different, this provides another example of immature processing of sensorimotor cortical oscillations in adolescence.…”

Dance on the Brain: Enhancing Intra- and Inter-Brain Synchrony

“…Throughout development, oscillations shift from lower to higher frequencies (i.e., increased gamma power) and develop heightened synchronicity (i.e., coherence or phase-locking value), with this process continuing into adulthood (Takano and Ogawa, 1998 ; Benasich et al, 2008 ; James et al, 2008 ; Müller et al, 2009 ; Poulsen et al, 2009 ; Uhlhaas et al, 2009 ; Cho et al, 2015 ; Marek et al, 2018 ). Recent research has shown that oscillatory activity in both somatosensory and motor cortices change throughout aging (e.g., increased post-movement beta rebound) and may underlie improvements in somatosensory processing and motor learning and performance (Gaetz et al, 2010 ; Espenhahn et al, 2019 ; Gehringer et al, 2019 ).…”