Bimanual proprioceptive performance differs for right- and left-handed individuals

NEUROSCIENCE LETTERS

卷:542

Article

Han, Jia^1,2  Waddington, Gordon²  Adams, Roger³  Anson, Judith² 

[1] Shanghai Univ Sport, Shanghai 200438, Yangpu District, Peoples R China

[2] Univ Canberra, Bruce, ACT 2600, Australia

[3] Univ Sydney, Fac Hlth Sci, Lidcombe, NSW 1825, Australia

关键词: Proprioception;    Bimanual task;    Movement discrimination;    Handedness;    Interhemispheric communication;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.neulet.2013.03.020

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

It has been proposed that asymmetry between the upper limbs in the utilization of proprioceptive feedback arises from functional differences in the roles of the preferred and non-preferred hands during bimanual tasks. The present study investigated unimanual and bimanual proprioceptive performance in right- and left-handed young adults with an active finger pinch movement discrimination task. With visual information removed, participants were required to make absolute judgments about the extent of pinch movements made to physical stops, either by one hand, or by both hands concurrently, with the sequence of presented movement extents varied randomly. Discrimination accuracy scores were derived from participants' responses using non-parametric signal detection analysis. Consistent with previous findings, a non-dominant hand/hemisphere superiority effect was observed, where the non-dominant hands of right- and left-handed individuals performed overall significantly better than their dominant hands. For all participants, bimanual movement discrimination scores were significantly lower than scores obtained in the unimanual task. However, the magnitude of the performance reduction, from the unimanual to the bimanual task, was significantly greater for left-handed individuals. The effect whereby bimanual proprioception was disproportionately affected in left-handed individuals could be due to enhanced neural communication between hemispheres in left-handed individuals leading to less distinctive separation of information obtained from the two hands in the cerebral cortex. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

【 授权许可】

Free