Early life experience sets hard limits on motor learning as evidenced from artificial arm use

eLife

A Aldo Faisal¹  Tamar R Makin²  Hunter R Schone³  David Henderson Slater⁴  Roni O Maimon-Mor⁵ 

[1] Departments of Bioengineering and of Computing, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom;Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, United Kingdom;Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, United Kingdom;Laboratory of Brain & Cognition, NIMH, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, United States;Oxford Centre for Enablement, Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, Oxford, United Kingdom;WIN Centre, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neuroscience, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom;Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, United Kingdom;

关键词: motor control;    amputees;    visuomotor integration;    sensorimotor development;    prosthesis;    Human;   

DOI  :  10.7554/eLife.66320

来源: eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd

【 摘 要 】

The study of artificial arms provides a unique opportunity to address long-standing questions on sensorimotor plasticity and development. Learning to use an artificial arm arguably depends on fundamental building blocks of body representation and would therefore be impacted by early life experience. We tested artificial arm motor-control in two adult populations with upper-limb deficiencies: a congenital group—individuals who were born with a partial arm, and an acquired group—who lost their arm following amputation in adulthood. Brain plasticity research teaches us that the earlier we train to acquire new skills (or use a new technology) the better we benefit from this practice as adults. Instead, we found that although the congenital group started using an artificial arm as toddlers, they produced increased error noise and directional errors when reaching to visual targets, relative to the acquired group who performed similarly to controls. However, the earlier an individual with a congenital limb difference was fitted with an artificial arm, the better their motor control was. Since we found no group differences when reaching without visual feedback, we suggest that the ability to perform efficient visual-based corrective movements is highly dependent on either biological or artificial arm experience at a very young age. Subsequently, opportunities for sensorimotor plasticity become more limited.

【 授权许可】

CC BY