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Providing Task Instructions During Motor Training Enhances Performance and Modulates Attentional Brain Networks

Learning a new motor task is a complex cognitive and motor process. Especially early during motor learning, cognitive functions such as attentional engagement, are essential, e.g., to discover relevant visual stimuli. Drawing participant’s attention towards task-relevant stimuli—e.g., with task inst...

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Autores principales: Penalver-Andres, Joaquin, Buetler, Karin A., Koenig, Thomas, Müri, René Martin, Marchal-Crespo, Laura
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8695982/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34955719
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2021.755721
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author Penalver-Andres, Joaquin
Buetler, Karin A.
Koenig, Thomas
Müri, René Martin
Marchal-Crespo, Laura
author_facet Penalver-Andres, Joaquin
Buetler, Karin A.
Koenig, Thomas
Müri, René Martin
Marchal-Crespo, Laura
author_sort Penalver-Andres, Joaquin
collection PubMed
description Learning a new motor task is a complex cognitive and motor process. Especially early during motor learning, cognitive functions such as attentional engagement, are essential, e.g., to discover relevant visual stimuli. Drawing participant’s attention towards task-relevant stimuli—e.g., with task instructions using visual cues or explicit written information—is a common practice to support cognitive engagement during training and, hence, accelerate motor learning. However, there is little scientific evidence about how visually cued or written task instructions affect attentional brain networks during motor learning. In this experiment, we trained 36 healthy participants in a virtual motor task: surfing waves by steering a boat with a joystick. We measured the participants’ motor performance and observed attentional brain networks using alpha-band electroencephalographic (EEG) activity before and after training. Participants received one of the following task instructions during training: (1) No explicit task instructions and letting participants surf freely (implicit training; IMP); (2) Task instructions provided through explicit visual cues (explicit-implicit training; E-IMP); or (3) through explicit written commands (explicit training; E). We found that providing task instructions during training (E and E-IMP) resulted in less post-training motor variability—linked to enhanced performance—compared to training without instructions (IMP). After training, participants trained with visual cues (E-IMP) enhanced the alpha-band strength over parieto-occipital and frontal brain areas at wave onset. In contrast, participants who trained with explicit commands (E) showed decreased fronto-temporal alpha activity. Thus, providing task instructions in written (E) or using visual cues (E-IMP) leads to similar motor performance improvements by enhancing activation on different attentional networks. While training with visual cues (E-IMP) may be associated with visuo-attentional processes, verbal-analytical processes may be more prominent when written explicit commands are provided (E). Together, we suggest that training parameters such as task instructions, modulate the attentional networks observed during motor practice and may support participant’s cognitive engagement, compared to training without instructions.
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spelling pubmed-86959822021-12-24 Providing Task Instructions During Motor Training Enhances Performance and Modulates Attentional Brain Networks Penalver-Andres, Joaquin Buetler, Karin A. Koenig, Thomas Müri, René Martin Marchal-Crespo, Laura Front Neurosci Neuroscience Learning a new motor task is a complex cognitive and motor process. Especially early during motor learning, cognitive functions such as attentional engagement, are essential, e.g., to discover relevant visual stimuli. Drawing participant’s attention towards task-relevant stimuli—e.g., with task instructions using visual cues or explicit written information—is a common practice to support cognitive engagement during training and, hence, accelerate motor learning. However, there is little scientific evidence about how visually cued or written task instructions affect attentional brain networks during motor learning. In this experiment, we trained 36 healthy participants in a virtual motor task: surfing waves by steering a boat with a joystick. We measured the participants’ motor performance and observed attentional brain networks using alpha-band electroencephalographic (EEG) activity before and after training. Participants received one of the following task instructions during training: (1) No explicit task instructions and letting participants surf freely (implicit training; IMP); (2) Task instructions provided through explicit visual cues (explicit-implicit training; E-IMP); or (3) through explicit written commands (explicit training; E). We found that providing task instructions during training (E and E-IMP) resulted in less post-training motor variability—linked to enhanced performance—compared to training without instructions (IMP). After training, participants trained with visual cues (E-IMP) enhanced the alpha-band strength over parieto-occipital and frontal brain areas at wave onset. In contrast, participants who trained with explicit commands (E) showed decreased fronto-temporal alpha activity. Thus, providing task instructions in written (E) or using visual cues (E-IMP) leads to similar motor performance improvements by enhancing activation on different attentional networks. While training with visual cues (E-IMP) may be associated with visuo-attentional processes, verbal-analytical processes may be more prominent when written explicit commands are provided (E). Together, we suggest that training parameters such as task instructions, modulate the attentional networks observed during motor practice and may support participant’s cognitive engagement, compared to training without instructions. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-12-09 /pmc/articles/PMC8695982/ /pubmed/34955719 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2021.755721 Text en Copyright © 2021 Penalver-Andres, Buetler, Koenig, Müri and Marchal-Crespo. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Penalver-Andres, Joaquin
Buetler, Karin A.
Koenig, Thomas
Müri, René Martin
Marchal-Crespo, Laura
Providing Task Instructions During Motor Training Enhances Performance and Modulates Attentional Brain Networks
title Providing Task Instructions During Motor Training Enhances Performance and Modulates Attentional Brain Networks
title_full Providing Task Instructions During Motor Training Enhances Performance and Modulates Attentional Brain Networks
title_fullStr Providing Task Instructions During Motor Training Enhances Performance and Modulates Attentional Brain Networks
title_full_unstemmed Providing Task Instructions During Motor Training Enhances Performance and Modulates Attentional Brain Networks
title_short Providing Task Instructions During Motor Training Enhances Performance and Modulates Attentional Brain Networks
title_sort providing task instructions during motor training enhances performance and modulates attentional brain networks
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8695982/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34955719
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2021.755721
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