The role of afferent vs efferent signals in implicit sensorimotor adaptation
department or school: Education, Faculty of
department or school: Kinesiology, School of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Szarka, Annika Marie
issued: 2024-04-29T17:18:55Z
issued: 2024
related degree: Master of Science - MSc
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: The clamped visual feedback task where participants reach towards targets on a visual display while observing task-irrelevant rotated cursor feedback has been developed to isolate the implicit component of adaptation. Despite awareness of the manipulation and instructions to ignore the visual feedback, participantsâ reach direction gradually drifts in the opposite direction of the cursor, eventually reaching an upper bound. While proprioception has been proposed as a critical sensory information source for the error signal driving adaptation, the role of the sensory prediction derived from the efference copy has largely been neglected. Current protocols do not allow for the separation of afferent and efferent sensory contributions; therefore, their individual contributions towards overall implicit adaptation behaviour are poorly understood. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of dissociating the afferent and efferent information available during implicit sensorimotor adaptation. This was examined through an isometric aiming task. Instead of performing actual reaching movements, participants moved a visual cursor towards various targets by applying horizontal force manually to an immovable handle. During perturbation trials, the cursor followed an invariant path rotated relative to the target. Participants were instructed to ignore this task-irrelevant cursor feedback and continue to "reach" towards the target. We found that participants implicitly adapted in a task where they were required to generate isometric forces to move an error-clamped rotated cursor on a visual display instead of performing actual reaches to the target. Furthermore, we observed faster learning rates and greater overall adaptation than in a typical clamped reaching paradigm. This finding was confirmed in a secondary experiment where participants performed actual reaching movements and demonstrated significantly less adaptation. Although the isometric task did not remove propri…
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/88071
note: THE ROLE OF AFFERENT VS EFFERENT SIGNALS IN IMPLICIT SENSORIMOTOR ADAPTATION by Annika Marie Szarka B.Kin, The University of British Columbia, 2022 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FUFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE in The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (Kinesiology) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) April 2024 © Annika Marie Szarka, 2024 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the thesis entitled: The role of afferent vs efferent signals in implicit sensorimotor adaptation submitted by Annika Marie Szarka in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Kinesiology Examining committee: Dr. Romeo Chua, Professor, School of Kinesiology, UBC Supervisor Dr. J. Timothy Inglis, Professor, School of Kinesiology, UBC Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Hyosub Kim, Assistant Professor, School of Kinesiology, UBC Supervisory Committee Member iii Abstract The clamped visual feedback task where participants reach towards targets on a visual display while observing task-irrelevant rotated cursor feedback has been developed to isolate the implicit component of adaptation. Despite awareness of the manipulation and instructions to ignore the visual feedback, participantsâ reach direction gradually drifts in the opposite direction of the cursor, eventually reaching an upper bound. While proprioception has been proposed as a critical sensory information source for the error signal driving adaptation, the role of the sensory prediction derived from the efference copy has largely been neglected. Current protocols do not allow for the separation of afferent and efferent sensory contributions; therefore, their individual contributions towards overall implicit adaptation behaviour are poorly understood. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of dissociating the afferent and efferent informati…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2024-05
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0442016
language: eng
degree discipline: Kinesiology
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
contributor: Chua, Romeo
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/88071