Visual Feedback Attenuates Force Fluctuations Induced by a Stressor

• Autores: Evangelos A. Christou
• Localización: Medicine & Science in Sports & exercise: Official Journal of the American College of Sports Medicine, ISSN 0195-9131, Vol. 37, Nº. 12, 2005, págs. 2126-2133
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Purpose: The fluctuations in force during a steady contraction can be influenced by age, vision, and level of physiological arousal. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of a stressor on the force fluctuations and information transmission exhibited by young, middle-aged, and older adults when a pinch-grip task was performed with and without visual feedback.

    Methods: Thirty-six men and women (19-86 yr) participated in a protocol that comprised anticipatory (30 min), stressor (15 min), and recovery periods (25 min). The stressor was a series of noxious electrical stimuli applied to the dorsal surface of the left hand. Subjects sustained a pinch-grip force with the right hand at 2% of the maximal voluntary contraction force. The normalized fluctuations in pinch-grip force (coefficient of variation), information transmission (log2 signal:noise), and the spectra for the force were quantified across the 70-min protocol.

    Results: Removal of visual feedback exacerbated the force fluctuations (3.83 +/- 3.15 vs 2.82 +/- 1.64%) and reduced the information transmission (5.01 +/- 0.86 vs 5.34 +/- 0.71 bits) only during the stressor period. The effect was similar for all age groups. Older adults exhibited greater force fluctuations and lower information transmission compared with young and middle-aged adults, especially during the stressor period. The impairments in fine motor performance during the stressor were associated with an enhancement of the power at 1-2 Hz in the force spectrum (R2 = 0.41-0.52).

    Conclusion: Removal of visual feedback increased the force fluctuations and decreased information transmission during a stressor period, which suggests that integration of visual feedback can attenuate the stressor-induced enhancement of synaptic input received by the motor neuron pool