"Adaptation to a novel motor task has been shown to be facilitated through co-contraction as well as exposure to a gradual, rather than an abrupt, dynamic perturbation. In this study, participants performed center out reaching movements in a velocity dependent force field. One group was exposed to a perturbing force of 20 N·m-1·s, another group was exposed to 5 N·m-1·s -step increments of perturbing force up to a total force of 20 N·m-1·s. Adaptation measured by randomly interspersed channel trials was found to be better in the group exposed to the gradually increasing perturbation. However, no significant differences were observed in levels of muscle activity during the exposure period. These results suggest that despite both co-contraction, and exposure to a gradual perturbation facilitating dynamic motor adaptation, these two mechanisms are independent of one another."--Page ii.
Read
