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Generalizing movement patterns following shoulder fixation

View ORCID ProfileRodrigo S. Maeda, Julia M. Zdybal, View ORCID ProfilePaul L. Gribble, View ORCID ProfileJ. Andrew Pruszynski
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/678623
Rodrigo S. Maeda
1Brain and Mind Institute, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada
2Robarts Research Institute, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada
3Dept. of Psychology, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada
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  • ORCID record for Rodrigo S. Maeda
Julia M. Zdybal
1Brain and Mind Institute, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada
2Robarts Research Institute, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada
4Dept. of Physiology and Pharmacology, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada
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Paul L. Gribble
1Brain and Mind Institute, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada
3Dept. of Psychology, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada
4Dept. of Physiology and Pharmacology, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada
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J. Andrew Pruszynski
1Brain and Mind Institute, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada
2Robarts Research Institute, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada
3Dept. of Psychology, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada
4Dept. of Physiology and Pharmacology, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada
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  • For correspondence: andrew.pruszynski@uwo.ca
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Abstract

A common goal of motor learning is generalizing newly learned movement patterns beyond the training context. Here we tested whether learning a new physical property of the arm during self-initiated reaching generalizes to new arm configurations. Seventy human participants (38 females) performed a single-joint elbow reaching task and/or countered mechanical perturbations that created pure elbow motion. Participants did so with the shoulder joint either free to rotate or locked by the robotic manipulandum. With the shoulder free, we found activation of shoulder extensor muscles for pure elbow extension trials, as required to counter the interaction torques that arise at the shoulder due to forearm rotation. After locking the shoulder joint, we found a substantial reduction in shoulder muscle activity that developed slowly over many trials. This reduction is appropriate because locking the shoulder joint cancels the interaction torques that arise at the shoulder to do forearm rotation and thus removes the need to activate shoulder muscles. In our first three experiments, we tested whether this reduction generalizes when reaching is self-initiated in (1) a different initial shoulder orientation, (2) a different initial elbow orientation and (3) for different reach distances. We found reliable generalization across initial shoulder orientation and reach distance but not for initial elbow orientation. In our fourth experiment, we tested whether generalization is also transferred to feedback control by applying mechanical perturbations and observing reflex responses in a distinct shoulder orientation. We found robust transfer to feedback control.

Footnotes

  • Grants: This work was supported by a grant from the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC Discovery Grant to J.A.P.: RGPIN-2015-06714). R.S.M. received a salary award from CNPq/Brazil. J.M.Z. received an Undergraduate Student Research Award from the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada. J.A.P. received a salary award from the Canada Research Chairs program.

  • Disclosures: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.
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Posted June 21, 2019.
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Generalizing movement patterns following shoulder fixation
Rodrigo S. Maeda, Julia M. Zdybal, Paul L. Gribble, J. Andrew Pruszynski
bioRxiv 678623; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/678623
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Generalizing movement patterns following shoulder fixation
Rodrigo S. Maeda, Julia M. Zdybal, Paul L. Gribble, J. Andrew Pruszynski
bioRxiv 678623; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/678623

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