Search results for "Motor learning"

Adolescents' school-related self-concept mediates motor skills and psychosocial well-being.

2014

Background The health benefits of exercise participation and physical activity for mental health and psychosocial well-being (PSWB) have been shown in several studies. However, one important background factor, that is, motor skills (MSs), has largely been ignored. In addition, most of the existing research focuses on poor MSs, that is, poor MSs are often connected to poorer PSWB. The mechanism linking MSs and PSWB is unclear. However, a preliminary suggestion has been made that self-worth or self-perceptions might mediate the association between MSs and PSWB. Aim We investigated whether the self-concepts (SCs) of school-related physical education (SCPE), reading (SCR), and mathematics (SCM)…

Mice lacking Plexin-B3 display normal CNS morphology and behaviour

2009

Semaphorins and their receptors, plexins, have emerged as important regulators of a multitude of biological processes. Plexin-B3 has been shown to be selectively expressed in postnatal oligodendrocytes. In contrast to the well-characterized Plexin-A family and the Plexin-B family members Plexin-B1 and -B2, no data are available on the functional role of Plexin-B3 in the central nervous system in vivo. Here we have elucidated the functional significance of Plexin-B3 by generating and analyzing constitutive knock-out mice. Plexin-B3-deficient mice were found to be viable and fertile. A systematic histological analysis revealed no morphological defects in the brain or spinal cord of mutant ani…

Chronic exposure to glucocorticoids induces suboptimal decision-making in mice.

2021

AbstractAnxio-depressive symptoms as well as severe cognitive dysfunction including aberrant decision-making (DM) are documented in neuropsychiatric patients with hypercortisolaemia. Yet, the influence of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis on DM processes remains poorly understood. As a tractable mean to approach this human condition, adult male C57BL/6JRj mice were chronically treated with corticosterone (CORT) prior to behavioural, physiological and neurobiological evaluation. The behavioural data indicate that chronic CORT delays the acquisition of contingencies required to orient responding towards optimal DM performance in a mouse Gambling Task (mGT). Specifically, CORT-treat…

Implicit learning and statistical learning: one phenomenon, two approaches.

2006

The domain-general learning mechanisms elicited in incidental learning situations are of potential interest in many research fields, including language acquisition, object knowledge formation and motor learning. They have been the focus of studies on implicit learning for nearly 40 years. Stemming from a different research tradition, studies on statistical learning carried out in the past 10 years after the seminal studies by Saffran and collaborators, appear to be closely related, and the similarity between the two approaches is strengthened further by their recent evolution. However, implicit learning and statistical learning research favor different interpretations, focusing on the forma…

On-line Coordination in Complex Goal-directed Movements: a Matter of Interactions between Several Loops.

2012

International audience; Motor flexibility is the ability to rapidly modify behavior when unexpected perturbations occur. In goal directed movements, this process may be involved during the motor execution itself, by using on-line motor corrections, or off-line, on a trial-by-trial basis. A consensus has emerged to describe and unify these two dependant processes within the framework of the internal models theory in which the cerebellum is involved in error processing. However, this general framework may be incomplete to describe on-line motor corrections when complex motor coordination is involved in the task. In particular, interaction torques existing between different effectors limit the…

2016

Current research demonstrates increased learning rates in differencial learning (DL) compared to repetitive training. To date, little is known on the underlying neurophysiological processes in DL that contribute to superior performance over repetitive practice. In the present study, we measured electroencephalographic (EEG) brain activation patterns after DL and repetitive badminton serve training. Twenty-four semi-professional badminton players performed badminton serves in a DL and repetitive training schedule in a within-subjects design. EEG activity was recorded from nineteen electrodes according to the 10-20 system before and immediately after each 20-minute exercise. Increased theta a…

Improving operational performance in altered gravity

2022

Human motor adaptation is crucial to remain efficient when exposed to unfamiliar environments. In these contexts, the efficient strategies developed by the brain to optimise movement can prove deficient. Dexterous manual movement execution in space therefore require the learning of new coordinated motor actions. Traditionally, adaptation mechanisms are tested in laboratory using robotic devices that disturb the limb specifically involved in the task while the dynamics of the rest of the body remain unchanged. Although participants build a more accurate representation of the task over repetitions, these approaches are limiting as they do not reflect the ecological adjustment to globally modi…

Hold design supports learning and transfer of climbing fluency

2014

Being a discipline with a broad range of genres, rock climbing is an activity where participants seek to generalize the skills they learn in different performance contexts. A training strategy for achieving skill transfer was explored in a group of experienced climbers. Specifically, we tested the effect of practising on three routes, each of the same difficulty, but where handholds supported opportunities for using either a single technical action or multiple actions. Transfer of climbing fluidity in terms of the geometric index of entropy (GIE) of the hip trajectory was then assessed. We expected that learning would be induced on the route where multiple actions were usable. Results revea…

Innovative Analysis of Service-Learning Effects in Physical Education: A Mixed-Methods Approach

2020

Purpose: To compare the development of teaching competency in preservice teachers of physical education (n = 96) through two different modalities of intervention from the same service-learning program. The preservice teachers provided a direct service to children with motor functional diversity, promoting their motor skills and counteracting their lack of social attention. Method: The topic was approached using mixed methods with methodological triangulation. Quantitative evidence was gathered through a quasi-experimental design of two nonequivalent experimental groups implementing the following instrument: the Teaching Competency while performing Motor Skills and Body Language Games Rubric…

Psychomotor speed in a random sample of 7,979 subjects aged 30 years and over.

2011

Background and aims: Slowing of psychomotor speed among older individuals has been shown in numerous studies. However, in most cases these studies were based on small and selected groups of people and, in some cases, the test procedures did not allow separation of decision time and motor components of the overall performance. The purpose of the present study was to analyse in a large, randomly selected population sample the differences in decision and movement times in simple and multiple-choice test conditions. The association of educational background with psychomotor speed was also examined. Methods: Data on psychomotor speed were collected from a representative nation-wide sample of the…