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

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....

Descripción completa

Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Roni O Maimon-Mor, Hunter R Schone, David Henderson Slater, A Aldo Faisal, Tamar R Makin
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: eLife Sciences Publications Ltd 2021
Materias:
R
Q
Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/8e50401750644f90b186c1f7fe522455
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
Descripción
Sumario: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.