Inferior Parietal Lobe Activity Reveals Bimanual Coupling and Interference.

When humans move both hands simultaneously, bimanual coupling or interference can occur. The circles-lines paradigm is used to study the bimanual coupling and interference effects: Participants simultaneously draw either lines or circles with both hands (congruent), or draw lines with one hand and circles with the other hand (incongruent condition). Despite extensive behavioral research on bimanual coupling with this paradigm, our knowledge of the neural circuitry involved remains limited.

Insights into proprioceptive acuity assessed with a dynamic joint position reproduction task.

This study investigated proprioceptive acuity using the conventional joint position reproduction (JPR) task and a modified version, the Dynamic JPR task (D-JPR), during Concentric and Eccentric muscle contractions. Seventeen participants were recruited and received a tactile stimulus indicating the position cue at Initial (INI), Intermediate (INT), and Final (FIN) phases of movements, during either the concentric or eccentric phases. After the movement, they replicated the position where they received the stimulus.

Should you hold onto the treadmill handrails or not? Cortical evidence at different walking speeds.

Background: Treadmill-based gait training is part of rehabilitation programs focused on walking abilities. The use of handrails embedded in treadmill systems is debated, and current literature only explores the issue from a behavioral perspective.

Methods: We examined the cortical correlates of treadmill walking in healthy participants using functional near-infrared spectroscopy.

Weight discrimination ability during an action observation task is dependent on the type of muscle contraction.

Concentric and eccentric contractions show different patterns of neural activity at both peripheral and cortical levels, which are thought to influence the perception of action properties such as the weight of objects moved by others. The aim of this study was to investigate how the type of muscle contraction influences weight estimation during action observation. Forty-eight volunteers completed the Main experiment and the Control experiment.

Comparing different motion correction approaches for resting-state functional connectivity analysis with functional near-infrared spectroscopy data.

Significance: Motion artifacts are a notorious challenge in the functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) field. However, little is known about how to deal with them in resting-state data.

Aim: We assessed the impact of motion artifact correction approaches on assessing functional connectivity, using semi-simulated datasets with different percentages and types of motion artifact contamination.

The metronome-based methodology to monitor the stroke length changes in trained swimmers.

The aim of our study was to develop a methodology that uses the metronome to constrain the swimmers' stroke rate with the aim to monitor changes in stroke length (SL) during two different periods of the season. Thirteen young trained swimmers (15.7 ± 1.

Motor imagery has a priming effect on motor execution in people with multiple sclerosis.

Priming is a learning process that refers to behavioral changes caused by previous exposure to a similar stimulus. Motor imagery (MI), which involves the mental rehearsal of action representations in working memory without engaging in actual execution, could be a strategy for priming the motor system. This study investigates whether MI primes action execution in Multiple Sclerosis (MS).

Don't plan, just do it: Cognitive and sensorimotor contributions to manual dexterity.

Manual dexterity is referred to as the skill to perform fine motor movements and it has been assumed to be associated to the cognitive domain, as well as the sensorimotor one. In this work, we investigated with functional near-infrared spectroscopy the cortical activations elicited by the execution of the 9-HPT, i.e.

Aging deteriorates the ability to discriminate the weight of an object during an action observation task.

The ability to predict the weight of objects is important for skilled and dexterous manipulation during activities of daily living. The observation of other people moving objects might represent an important source of information on object features and help to plan the correct motor interaction with it. In aging, an impaired ability to evaluate the object weight might have negative drawbacks in term of the safety of the person.

How Music Moves Us: Music-induced Emotion Influences Motor Learning.

Music is an important tool for the induction and regulation of emotion. Although learning a sequential motor behaviour is essential to normal motor function, to our knowledge, the role of music-induced emotion on motor learning has not been explored. Our experiment aimed to determine whether listening to different emotional music could influence motor sequence learning.

Sensorimotor expertise influences perceptual weight judgments during observation of a sport-specific gesture.

This study aimed to investigate the role of sensorimotor expertise in evaluating relative weight of a lifted object during the observation of a sport-specific gesture, namely the deadlift. Fifty-six participants, assigned to three groups according to their experience in weight lifting, powerlifters, CrossFit® practitioners and naïve participants (controls), performed a perceptual weight judgments task. Participants observed videos showing a powerlifter executing a deadlift at the 80%, 90% and 100% of 1 repetition maximum (1RM) and answered a question about the weight of the lifted object.

Time-of-day influences resting-state functional cortical connectivity.

Time-of-day is rarely considered during experimental protocols investigating motor behavior and neural activity. The goal of this work was to investigate differences in functional cortical connectivity at rest linked to the time of the day using functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS). Since resting-state brain is shown to be a succession of cognitive, emotional, perceptual, and motor processes that can be both conscious and nonconscious, we studied self-generated thought with the goal to help in understanding brain dynamics.

Motor Resonance Flexibility to Emotion-Enriched Context in Parkinson's Disease Patients.

In healthy people, motor resonance mechanisms are flexible to negative emotional contextual clues with greater motor resonance during the observation of a reach to grasp movement performed in an environment eliciting disgust. The link between emotion and motor control has become an interesting topic in Parkinson's disease (PD). Here, we aimed to study the response of the mirror neuron system, specifically motor resonance, to an emotion-enriched context in people with PD.

Barriers to exercise and the role of general practitioner: A cross-sectional survey among people with multiple sclerosis.

Introduction: Regular exercise is strongly recommended for people with MS (pwMS), but recent studies still describe them as sedentary and insufficiently active. The purpose of this study is to identify the major barriers that prevent pwMS from exercising and underline the importance of the general practitioner (GP) in promoting an active lifestyle.

Materials And Methods: We performed a multicenter cross-sectional study using a self-administered questionnaire among pwMS.

Machine learning for exploring neurophysiological functionality in multiple sclerosis based on trigeminal and hand blink reflexes.

Brainstem dysfunctions are very common in Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and are a critical predictive factor for future disability. Brainstem functionality can be explored with blink reflexes, subcortical responses consisting in a blink following a peripheral stimulation. Some reflexes are already employed in clinical practice, such as Trigeminal Blink Reflex (TBR).

Transcranial direct current stimulation alters sensorimotor modulation during cognitive representation of movement.

We recently demonstrated, by means of short latency afferent inhibition (SAI), that before an imagined movement, during the reaction time (RT), SAI decreases only in the movement-related muscle (sensorimotor modulation) and that a correlation exists between sensorimotor modulation and motor imagery (MI) ability. Excitatory anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (a-tDCS) on M1 could enhance the MI outcome; however, mechanisms of action are not completely known. Here, we assessed if a-tDCS on M1 prior to an MI task could affect sensorimotor modulation.

The hand motor hotspot for seed-based functional connectivity of hand motor networks at rest.

In the seed-based method for studying functional connectivity (FC), seed selection is relevant. Here, we propose a new methodological approach for resting-state FC analysis of hand motor networks using the individual hand motor hotspot (hMHS) as seed. Nineteen right-handed healthy volunteers underwent a transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) session and resting-state fMRI.

Wearing a Mask Shapes Interpersonal Space during COVID-19 Pandemic.

Social distancing norms have been promoted after the COVID-19 pandemic. In this work, we tested interpersonal space (IPS) in 107 subjects through a reaching-comfort distance estimation task. In the main experiment, subjects had to estimate the comfort and reach space between an avatar wearing or not wearing a face mask.

Sensorimotor inhibition during emotional processing.

Visual processing of emotional stimuli has been shown to engage complex cortical and subcortical networks, but it is still unclear how it affects sensorimotor integration processes. To fill this gap, here, we used a TMS protocol named short-latency afferent inhibition (SAI), capturing sensorimotor interactions, while healthy participants were observing emotional body language (EBL) and International Affective Picture System (IAPS) stimuli. Participants were presented with emotional (fear- and happiness-related) or non-emotional (neutral) EBL and IAPS stimuli while SAI was tested at 120 ms and 300 ms after pictures presentation.

Neurophysiological and behavioural correlates of ocrelizumab therapy on manual dexterity in patients with primary progressive multiple sclerosis.

Background: Hand dexterity impairment is a key feature of disability in people with primary progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS). So far, ocrelizumab, a recombinant humanized monoclonal antibody that selectively depletes CD20-expressing B cells, is the only therapy approved for PPMS and recent analysis reported its ability to reduce the risk of upper limb disability progression. However, the neural mechanisms underlying hand impairment in PPMS and the brain networks behind the effect of ocrelizumab on manual dexterity are not fully understood.

Time-of-day effects on skill acquisition and consolidation after physical and mental practices.

Time-of-day influences both physical and mental performances. Its impact on motor learning is, however, not well established yet. Here, using a finger tapping-task, we investigated the time-of-day effect on skill acquisition (i.

Muscle Fatigue and Swimming Efficiency in Behind and Lateral Drafting.

Drafting in swimming is a tactic in which an athlete (drafter) swims in the wave of another athlete (leader). Our aim was to compare the effects of this tactic on the drafter, as far as muscle fatigue, muscle activity, and swimming efficiency are concerned. Fifteen drafters performed three 200 m front crawl trials at a controlled submaximal pace in three configurations: Behind Drafting (BD), Lateral Drafting (LD), and Free Swimming (FS).

Somatosensory inputs modulate the excitability of cerebellar-cortical interaction.

Objective: Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) delivered over the cerebellum 5-7 ms prior to a stimulus over the contralateral primary motor cortex (M1) reduces the excitability of M1 output, a phenomenon termed cerebellar brain inhibition (CBI). The cerebellum receives sensory information for adaptive motor coordination and motor planning. Here, we explored through TMS whether a peripheral electrical stimulus modulates CBI.