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At least 307 records · Page 17Linked to original sources
PubMed1991

Tactile-kinesthetic system of rats as an animal model for minimal brain dysfunction.

A previous study showed that rats exposed to methylmercury during development exhibit effects similar to those described for children with minimal brain dysfunction (MBD), namely, hyperactivity, altered locomotion structure, and unaltered learning ability, but reduced and more variable attention spans induced by increasing difficulties within an operant learning paradigm. Psychopathological studies suggest that behavioral disturbances of the MBD type may originate directly or indirectly from deficiencies in the tactile-kinesthetic system. This sensory modality is the main mechanism by which an individual organism assimilates reality. Deficiencies in the tactile-kinesthetic system impair the action of the equilibration processes (in Piaget's sense) which ensure that the stages of psychological development occur in an orderly sequence. The lack of this control over development may result in the behavioral characteristics of MBD. Problems with the tactile-kinesthetic system may also be the reason for the deficiencies of fine motor control in MBD children. In an attempt to extrapolate this interpretation of human psychopathological mechanisms to experimental animals, an operant paradigm was developed for the assessment of the tactile-kinesthetic system of rats, the schedule of "differential reinforcement of force range" (DRF). Rats were trained to press in discrete trials a force sensitive lever during at least 1 s between two force thresholds of 60 and 80 g without any feedback other than the rats' own tactile-kinesthetic perception. Offspring of rat dams exposed to 1.5 and 5 mg/l methylmercury-chloride in their drinking water from 2 weeks before pairing until weaning, exhibited a clearcut performance deficit (approximately 25% correct responses compared to approximately 50% of the controls).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Animals↗
PubMed1996

Elimination of posttraumatic symptomatology by relaxation and visual-kinesthetic dissociation.

Five patients suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder and experiencing persistent intrusive imagery were treated with two sessions of relaxation training followed by two sessions of the visual-kinesthetic dissociation technique. Outcome was monitored using a multiple baseline design. Despite the briefness of the intervention, three of the patients showed an almost complete reduction in the frequency of their intrusive images and substantial changes on other measures of psychopathology. One patient showed partial improvement and one patient showed no improvement at all.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Caffeine differentially affects kinesthetic aftereffect in high and low impulsives.

The effects of caffeine on kinesthetic aftereffect (KAE) were examined. Following a between-subjects design, high and low impulsive male postgraduate students were administered placebo and four doses of caffeine (1, 2, 3 and 4 mg/kg body weight) in a laboratory situation. A double blind procedure was adopted for drug administration. The study supports the following conclusions: (1) caffeine reduces KAE in high impulsive subjects; (2) the larger dose of caffeine (4 mg/kg) enhances KAE in low impulsive subjects; (3) caffeine produces profound effects on the performance of high impulsives; (4) caffeine leads to different dose-response trends in the two groups.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Long-term ongoing reorganizations of the processes of analysis of kinesthetic afferentation at the level of cat motor cortex neurons after damage to the ventrolateral nucleus of the thalamus.

The changes in the functional characteristics of neurons of field 4 of the motor cortex (MC) of cats before and at various times (from a week up to five months) following an ipsilateral lesion of the ventrolateral nucleus of the thalamus were investigated in semichronic experiments. The reactions of the cells to tactile stimulation of the forelimb and its passive movement at the wrist at an average speed of 170 degrees/sec were studied. It was demonstrated that a correlation between the impulse activity at speed maxima and the acceleration of monoarticular movement is characteristic for a number of cells of the MC of the intact brain. Experimental confirmation was obtained of the hypothesis, formulated on the basis of the results of preceding investigations, regarding a disturbance of the mechanism of detection by MC neurons of the kinematic indicators of movement following damage to the thalamus. It was established that compensation of this disturbance is associated with the facilitation of conduction to MC neurons of somatosensory afferentation. It is concluded that a morphofunctional reorganization of particular intracortical components of sensorimotor coupling underlies the mechanisms of the compensatory plasticity of the MC.

Acceleration↗
PubMed1990

Representation of braille characters in human nerve fibres.

We have used microneurographic techniques in human subjects to record mechanoreceptive afferent responses to standard Braille characters scanned across the finger pads. Responses from all four mechanoreceptor classes (FA I, FA II, SA I and SA II) have been reconstructed to form two-dimensional Spatial Event Plots (raster plots) of the Braille alphabet. Both the SA I and FA I responses resolve the dot patterns of Braille characters with sufficient fidelity that the representations of the individual characters can be recognized visually. Responses from SA II and FA II afferents do not resolve the Braille characters. We believe that the Spatial Event Plots derived from SA I and FA I responses closely approximate the images that are transmitted within a human nerve during Braille reading.

Fingers↗
PubMed1997

Timing of onset of afferent responses and of use of kinesthetic information for control of movement in normal and cerebellar-impaired subjects.

A coordinated triggering task requiring use of kinesthetic information was employed to assess the timing of use of kinesthetic information in normal subjects and patients with cerebellar dysfunction. Passive movements of varying velocity were imposed in the flexor direction about the metacarpophalangeal joint of the right index finger. Subjects attempted to depress a switch with their left thumb when the index finger moved past a specified angle that was learned during a training session. The velocities ranged from 10 degrees/s to 88 degrees/s in 2 degrees/s increments. After 200 trials, subjects were then instructed instead to react as quickly as possible (reaction-time task) to the onset of movement for an additional 200 trials. For the same movements, the timing of onset of responses of muscle spindle afferents and cutaneous mechanoreceptors was determined by recording the responses of these afferents using microneurography. For slow velocities, patients were able to perform similarly to normals but at faster velocities patients triggered too late compared with normals. Patients required more time to use kinesthetic information than did normal subjects. An estimate of kinesthetic processing was not longer in patients. The chief explanation for the prolonged time required to use kinesthetic information in patients was that their reaction times were prolonged by 93 ms. In addition, the movement time was also prolonged, but this accounted for only 23 ms. Impaired motor performance in tasks requiring the use of kinesthetic information in cerebellar patients can be explained largely by their prolonged reaction times. Muscle spindle afferents responded on average much sooner than cutaneous mechanoreceptors. Because of the limited time available to perform the kinesthetic triggering task, the role for cutaneous mechanoreceptors to provide signals for on-line coordination of movement appears limited compared with muscle spindle afferents.

Action Potentials↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The sensory nature of reward in instrumental behavior.

Improvement in the sensory state, or "better-being," achieved either through obtaining desirable sensations or through escaping undesirable sensations, is considered the essential value which maintains the instrumental behavior. This value may vary depending on such factors as the intensity of the stimulus producing sensations, the effects of its previous occurrence, and the changes in the internal and external environment. Methods of evaluation of sensory "better-being" by means of measuring instrumental, autonomic and EEG responses are discussed.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

How is linguistic memory accessed? A psychophysiological approach.

The role of "subvocalization" during language comprehension, especially reading, is examined. Four arguments against it having a role in accessing memory are erroneous because 1) its latency is much shorter than is conventionally stated; 2) rate of visual information processing is erroneously estimated by failing to distinguish between reading and scanning; 3) covert speech does not disappear in the competent language performer; and 4) the argument that subvocalization is an epiphenomenon is irrelevant. Rather, data support the generalization that covert speech is present during all cognitive functioning and that its specific topography is discriminatively related to the class of phoneme being processed. It is thus inferred that during cognition the speech musculature generates a phonetic code that may function to access linguistic memory. However, since there are also numerous other psychophysiologic events associated with covert speech, a multichannel processing system is hypothesized wherein speech, visual, and kinesthetic modalities interact with the brain. Illustrations are given of how this accessing model is compatible with existing holographic and feature analyzer models of memory. Data are presented that illustrate how phonetically encoded neuromuscular events can be directly measured through psychophysiologic methods. It is hypothesized that cognitive processes are generated when cybernetic neuromuscular circuits selectively interact. Consequently, all components of these neuromuscular circuits serve a function during cognition so that a role for "subvocalization" (a muscular component) cannot be ruled out in an apriori manner.

Electromyography↗
PubMed1997

Inter- and intra-sensory modality matching in children with hand-eye co-ordination problems.

Inter- and intra-sensory modality matching by 8-year-old children diagnosed as having hand-eye co-ordination problems (HECP) and by a control group of children without such problems were tested using a target-location and pointing task. The task required the children to locate target pins visually (seen target), with the hand (felt target) or in combination (felt and seen target), while pointing to the located target was always carried out without vision. The most striking finding, for both the control and the HECP children, was the superiority of performance when the target had to be located visually. When combined scores for both hands were analysed, the HECP children showed inferior performance to the control children in both inter- and intra-modal matching. Analyses of the scores achieved with the preferred and non-preferred hand separately, however, demonstrated that the differences between the HECP and the control children could, in the main, be attributed to lowered performances when the non-preferred hand was used for pointing to the target. When pointing with the preferred hand, the only significant difference between the groups was when the target was visually located, the control children showing superior performance. Pointing with the non-preferred hand gave rise to significant differences, in favour of the control children, when the target was located visually, with the hand or in combination. These findings suggest that earlier studies, using only the preferred hand or a combination of the scores of both hands, might need to be qualified. Putative neurological disorders in the HECP children are invoked to account for the poor performance with the non-preferred hand.

Case-Control Studies↗
PubMed1997

Human eye-head coordination in two dimensions under different sensorimotor conditions.

The coordination between eye and head movements during a rapid orienting gaze shift has been investigated mainly when subjects made horizontal movements towards visual targets with the eyes starting at the centre of the orbit. Under these conditions, it is difficult to identify the signals driving the two motor systems, because their initial motor errors are identical and equal to the coordinates of the sensory stimulus (i.e. retinal error). In this paper, we investigate head-free gaze saccades of human subjects towards visual as well as auditory stimuli presented in the two-dimensional frontal plane, under both aligned and unaligned initial fixation conditions. Although the basic patterns for eye and head movements were qualitatively comparable for both stimulus modalities, systematic differences were also obtained under aligned conditions, suggesting a task-dependent movement strategy. Auditory-evoked gaze shifts were endowed with smaller eye-head latency differences, consistently larger head movements and smaller concomitant ocular saccades than visually triggered movements. By testing gaze control for eccentric initial eye positions, we found that the head displacement vector was best related to the initial head motor-error (target-re-head), rather than to the initial gaze error (target-re-eye), regardless of target modality. These findings suggest an independent control of the eye and head motor systems by commands in different frames of reference. However, we also observed a systematic influence of the oculomotor response on the properties of the evoked head movements, indicating a subtle coupling between the two systems. The results are discussed in view of current eye-head coordination models.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2000

Comfort constrains graphic workspace: test results of a 3D forearm model.

Human movement performance is subject to many physical and psychological constraints. Analyses of these constraints may not only improve our understanding of the performance aspects that subjects need to keep under continuous control, but may also shed light on the possible origins of specific behavioral preferences that people display in motor tasks. The goal of the present paper is to make an empirical contribution here. In a recent simulation study, we reported effects of pen-grip and forearm-posture constraints on the spatial characteristics of the pen tip's workspace in drawing. The effects concerned changes in the location, size, and orientation of the reachable part of the writing plane, as well as variations in the computed degree of comfort in the hand and finger postures required to reach the various parts of this area. The present study is aimed at empirically evaluating to what extent these effects influence subjects' graphic behavior in a simple, free line-drawing task. The task involved the production of small back-and-forth drawing movements in various directions, to be chosen randomly under three forearm-posture and five pen-grip conditions. The observed variations in the subjects' choice of starting positions showed a high level of agreement with those of the simulated graphic-area locations, showing that biomechanically defined comfort of starting postures is indeed a determinant of the selection of starting points. Furthermore, between-condition rotations in the frequency distributions of the realized stroke directions corresponded to the simulation results, which again confirms the importance of comfort in directional preferences. It is concluded that postural rather than spatial constraints primarily affect subjects' preferences for starting positions and stroke directions in graphic motor performance. The relevance of the present modelling approach and its results for the broader field of complex motor behavior, including the manipulation of tools, is indicated briefly.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

[Individual differences in susceptibility to motion sickness].

Several different theories exist about the origin of kinetosis and the space adaptation syndrome, with individual sensitivities differing significantly. One explanation involves the hypothesis of a different otolith mass between the right and left statolith organ and especially a difference in the utricles. A difference in mass results in a different sensitivity to acceleration. For this reason we measured interindividual variances in saccular and utricular otolith mass. Since the anatomy of the vestibular organ in vertebrates is based as similar principles, we selected fish (salmon and trout) as our study model to facilitation preparations. The maximum difference in mass in the saccule was 17% and was generally smaller in the utricle, although in individual cases was much higher. We assume that a misbalanced sensitivity of the statolith organs occurs but is totally compensated for by the vestibular system as long as physiological motion patterns take place. Decompensation leads to kinetosis under non-physiological motion patterns. When the vestibular system is better balanced and has an equally distributed otolith mass to both sides, the possibility for developing kinetosis or space adaptation syndrome is much less likely.

Animals↗
PubMed2000

[Kinetoses].

Motion sickness is a well known nausea and vomiting syndrome whose physical signs occur during travel by sea, automobile, airplane, and space. This review describes current concepts concerning the aetiology, nature and therapy of this common phenomenon. Motion sickness involve a neural mismatch or confusion between the vestibular, visual, and proprioceptive systems. Therapy is directed towards decreasing conflicting sensory input, controlling nausea, and speeding the process of adaptation.

Humans↗
PubMed2001

[Otolith-ocular reflex in linear acceleration of low frequencies].

BACKGROUND: During constant velocity rotation about the earth's vertical axis, eccentric displacement of the head can be used to generate adequate stimulation of the otolith organs. More recently, studies have been performed with a variable radius rotatory chair, which permits a controlled modulation of the centripetal or radial acceleration, to achieve linear acceleration frequencies much lower than with a conventional linear sled. METHODS: In the present study, frequency response and threshold testing was performed using sinusoidal modulation of the chair radius. Three-dimensional eye movements were recorded with binocular video-oculography. RESULTS: The gain (0.09 degree/degree at 0.03 Hz, 0.009 degree/degree at 1 Hz) and phase relationships of the otolith-ocular response (OOR) show a low-pass characteristic over the measured range of 0.03-1.0 Hz. In comparison to the flat response of neurophysiological recordings from the otolith afferent, our findings support the idea that any low-pass filtering of otolith afferents occurs at the level of the vestibular nuclei. CONCLUSION: The OOR could be detected at acceleration levels of 0.03 m/s2, much lower than the subjective threshold for the perception of 0.08 m/s2.

Acceleration↗
PubMed1997

[Proprioceptive capacities of patients with retropatellar knee pain with special reference to effectiveness of an elastic knee bandage].

In the presented study, knee joint proprioception of 43 patients with a patellar pain syndrome of the knee joint was evaluated. In a control group, the proprioception of 30 healthy volunteers with clinical and an-amnestic inconspicous knee joints was examined. We tested the proprioceptive capability of the subjects with a passive angle reproduction test. Additionally, all knee joints were measured with and without an elastic knee bandage. The patient group showed significant deterioration of angle reproduction capability (13.2 degrees +/- 6.1 degrees) compared to the control group (7.8 degrees +/- 2.8 degrees). After applying an elastic knee bandage, the angle reproduction capability significantly improved to 9.2 degrees +/- 4.5 degrees. Proprioception of the contralateral, noninvolved knee joint in the patients (11.6 degrees +/- 6.3 degrees) was worse compared to the control group. Applying an elastic knee bandage did not significantly improve the proprioception of the uninjured knee joint.

Adult↗