| Literature DB >> 32161533 |
Gabriel Poirier1, Charalambos Papaxanthis1, France Mourey1, Jeremie Gaveau1.
Abstract
Several sensorimotor modifications are known to occur with aging, possibly leading to adverse outcomes such as falls. Recently, some of those modifications have been proposed to emerge from motor planning deteriorations. Motor planning of vertical movements is thought to engage an internal model of gravity to anticipate its mechanical effects on the body-limbs and thus to genuinely produce movements that minimize muscle effort. This is supported, amongst other results, by direction-dependent kinematics where relative durations to peak accelerations and peak velocity are shorter for upward than for downward movements. The present study compares the motor planning of fast and slow vertical arm reaching movements between 18 young (24 ± 3 years old) and 17 older adults (70 ± 5 years old). We found that older participants still exhibit strong directional asymmetries (i.e., differences between upward and downward movements), indicating that optimization processes during motor planning persist with healthy aging. However, the size of these differences was increased in older participants, indicating that gravity-related motor planning changes with age. We discuss this increase as the possible result of an overestimation of gravity torque or increased weight of the effort cost in the optimization process. Overall, these results support the hypothesis that feedforward processes and, more precisely, optimal motor planning, remain active with healthy aging.Entities:
Keywords: aging; effort; gravity; kinematics; motor planning; optimal control
Year: 2020 PMID: 32161533 PMCID: PMC7052522 DOI: 10.3389/fnagi.2020.00037
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Front Aging Neurosci ISSN: 1663-4365 Impact factor: 5.750
Figure 1(A) Experimental setup and participant’s starting position. From this starting position, participants pointed to the upward or the downward target on separated trials. (B) Illustration of the parameters computed on the velocity and acceleration profiles.
Kinematic parameters for each condition.
| Fast | Slow | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Young | Older | Young | Older | |||||
| Up | Down | Up | Down | Up | Down | Up | Down | |
| Movement duration (ms) | 328 ± 31 | 330 ± 30 | 349 ± 52 | 347 ± 51 | 570 ± 147 | 573 ± 145 | 581 ± 115 | 578 ± 135 |
| Amplitude (°) | 29.6 ± 1.1 | 29.0 ± 1.1 | 29.2 ± 1.7 | 30.3 ± 2.5 | 28.4 ± 1.4 | 28.2 ± 1.1 | 27.6 ± 2.1 | 27.9 ± 2.0 |
| rD-PA | 0.23 ± 0.01 | 0.24 ± 0.01 | 0.20 ± 0.03 | 0.23 ± 0.02 | 0.19 ± 0.04 | 0.21 ± 0.03 | 0.18 ± 0.03 | 0.22 ± 0.03 |
| rD-PV | 0.48 ± 0.02 | 0.49 ± 0.02 | 0.44 ± 0.04 | 0.47 ± 0.03 | 0.46 ± 0.04 | 0.47 ± 0.04 | 0.43 ± 0.04 | 0.47 ± 0.04 |
Mean (±SD) movement duration (in ms), amplitude (in °), relative duration to peak acceleration (rD-PA), and relative duration to peak velocity (rD-PV) are presented for each experimental condition.
Figure 2Mean position (A–B), velocity (C–D), and acceleration (E–F) profiles for each group and direction at fast (A,C,E) and slow (B,D,F) speed. Black traces represent upward movements, and grey traces represent downward movements. In each panel, left plots display young participants’ data, while right plots display older participants’ data.
Figure 3(A) Mean (± SD) relative duration to peak acceleration (rD-PA) for upward (black) and downward (gray) fast and slow movements. Solid bars represent young, and striped bars represent older participants. (B) Mean (± SD) relative duration to peak velocity (rD-PV) for upward (black) and downward (gray) fast and slow movements. Solid bars represent young, and striped bars represent older participants. (C) Box plots show directional ratio (computed for each participant as: (rD-PADown − rD-PAUp)/rD-PADown and (rD-PVDown − rD-PVUp)/rD-PVDown for young (empty boxes) and older (striped boxes) participants. Whiskers represent a 95% confidence interval. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01.