A Very Fast Time Scale of Human Motor Adaptation: Within Movement Adjustments of Internal Representations during Reaching

Humans and other animals adapt motor commands to predictable disturbances within tens of trials in laboratory conditions. A central question is how does the nervous system adapt to disturbances in natural conditions when exactly the same movements cannot be practiced several times. Because motor commands and sensory feedback together carry continuous information about limb dynamics, we hypothesized that the nervous system could adapt to unexpected disturbances online. We tested this hypothesis in two reaching experiments during which velocity-dependent force fields (FFs) were randomly applied. We found that within-movement feedback corrections gradually improved, despite the fact that the perturbations were unexpected. Moreover, when participants were instructed to stop at a via-point, the application of a FF prior to the via-point induced mirror-image after-effects after the via-point, consistent with within-trial adaptation to the unexpected dynamics. These findings suggest a fast time-scale of motor learning, which complements feedback control and supports adaptation of an ongoing movement.