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. 2019 Oct 24;19(1):287.
doi: 10.1186/s12877-019-1285-x.

Age-related deficits in bilateral motor synergies and force coordination

Nyeonju Kang  1   2   3 , Lisa M Roberts  3   4 , Clara Aziz  3 , James H Cauraugh  5
Affiliations

Age-related deficits in bilateral motor synergies and force coordination

Nyeonju Kang et al. BMC Geriatr. .

Abstract

Background: Ageing may cause impairments in executing bilateral movement control. This study investigated age-related changes in interlimb force coordination across multiple trials by quantifying bilateral motor synergies based on the uncontrolled manifold hypothesis. Participants completed the trials with and without visual feedback.

Methods: Twenty healthy individuals (10 older adults and 10 young adults) performed 12 isometric force control trials for the two vision conditions at 5% of maximal voluntary contraction. All dependent variables were analyzed in two-way mixed model (Group × Vision Condition; 2 × 2) ANOVAs with repeated measures on the last factor.

Results: The analyses revealed that older adults had greater mean force produced by two hands in both vision conditions (i.e., yes and no visual feedback). Across both vision conditions, the older adult group showed greater asymmetrical force variability (i.e., standard deviation of non-dominant hand > standard deviation of dominant hand) and revealed more positive correlation coefficients between forces produced by two hands as compared with the young adult group. Finally, an index of bilateral motor synergies was significantly greater in young adults than older adults when visual feedback was available.

Conclusion: The current findings indicate that deficits in interlimb force coordination across multiple trials appeared in older adults.

Keywords: Ageing; Interlimb coordination; Motor control; Uncontrolled manifold; Visual information.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Experimental setup. a Visual display examples across vision conditions. b UCM hypothesis for calculating good and bad variability
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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