Psychophysiological support of increasing attentional reserve during the development of a motor skill

Jeremy C Rietschel; Craig G McDonald; Ronald N Goodman; Matthew W Miller; Lauren M Jones-Lush; George F Wittenberg; Bradley D Hatfield

doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2014.10.008

Psychophysiological support of increasing attentional reserve during the development of a motor skill

Biol Psychol. 2014 Dec:103:349-56. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2014.10.008. Epub 2014 Oct 23.

Authors

Jeremy C Rietschel¹, Craig G McDonald², Ronald N Goodman³, Matthew W Miller⁴, Lauren M Jones-Lush⁵, George F Wittenberg⁶, Bradley D Hatfield⁷

Affiliations

¹ Neuroscience and Cognitive Science Program, Department of Kinesiology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA; Maryland Exercise and Robotics Center of Excellence, Veterans Health Administration, Baltimore, MD, USA.
² Department of Psychology, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA.
³ Maryland Exercise and Robotics Center of Excellence, Veterans Health Administration, Baltimore, MD, USA; Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
⁴ School of Kinesiology, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA.
⁵ Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA; Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
⁶ Maryland Exercise and Robotics Center of Excellence, Veterans Health Administration, Baltimore, MD, USA; Veterans Affairs Geriatrics Research, Education and Clinical Center, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA; Department of Neurology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA; Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
⁷ Neuroscience and Cognitive Science Program, Department of Kinesiology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA. Electronic address: bhatfiel@umd.edu.

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between motor skill and attentional reserve. Participants practiced a reaching task with the dominant upper extremity, to which a distortion of the visual feedback was applied, while a control group performed the same task without distortion. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs), elicited by auditory stimuli were recorded throughout practice. Performance, as measured by initial directional error, was initially worse relative to controls and improved over trials. Analyses of the ERPs revealed that exogenous components, N1 and P2, were undifferentiated between the groups and did not change with practice. Notably, amplitude of the novelty P3 component, an index of the involuntary orienting of attention, was initially attenuated relative to controls, but progressively increased in amplitude over trials in the learning group only. The results provide psychophysiological evidence that attentional reserve increases as a function of motor skill acquisition.

Keywords: Attention; EEG; Event-related potential; Motor learning; Novelty-P3.

Publication types

Randomized Controlled Trial

MeSH terms

Adult
Attention / physiology*
Brain / physiology*
Electroencephalography / methods
Evoked Potentials / physiology*
Female
Humans
Male
Motor Skills / physiology*
Young Adult

Grants and funding

P30 AG028747/AG/NIA NIH HHS/United States