Reduced Neural Differentiation Between Feedback Conditions After Bimanual Coordination Training with and without Augmented Visual Feedback

Abstract

It has been established that bimanual coordination with augmented feedback (FB) versus no augmented feedback (NFB) is associated with activity in different brain regions. It is unclear however, whether this distinction remains after practice comprising both these conditions. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used in humans to compare visual FB versus NFB conditions for a bimanual tracking task, and their differential evolution across learning. Scanning occurred before (Pre) and after 2 weeks (Post) of mixed FB and NFB training using an event-related design, allowing differentiation between the planning and execution phase of the task. Activations at the whole-brain level initially differed for FB versus NFB movements but this differentiation diminished with training for the movement execution phase. Specifically, in right dorsal premotor cortex and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activation increased for NFB and decreased for FB trials to converge toward the end of practice. This suggests that learning led to a decreased need to adjust the ongoing movement on the basis of FB, whereas online monitoring became more pronounced in NFB trials as discrepancies between the required and the produced motor output were detected more accurately after training, due to a generic internal reference of correctness supporting movement control under varying conditions.

Keywords: augmented visual feedback; bimanual coordination; fMRI; motor learning; neural plasticity.