2024-03-28T21:53:47Zhttps://keep.lib.asu.edu/oai/requestoai:keep.lib.asu.edu:node-1319282021-08-11T21:09:57Zoai_pmh:all131928
https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.I.56064
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
2020-05
22 pages
eng
Rangarajan, Vishvak
Honeycutt, Claire
Schaefer, Sydney
Harrington Bioengineering Program
Harrington Bioengineering Program
Barrett, The Honors College
Text
Motor skill acquisition, the process by which individuals practice and consolidate<br/>movement to become faster, more accurate and efficient, declines with age. Initial skill acquisition is dominated by cortical structures; however as learning proceeds, literature from<br/>rodents and songbirds suggests that there is a transition away from cortical execution. Recent<br/>evidence indicates that the reticulospinal system plays an important role in integration and<br/>retention of learned motor skills. The brainstem has known age-rated deficits including cell<br/>shrinkage & death. Given the role of the reticulospinal system in skill acquisition and older<br/>adult’s poor capacity to learn, it begs the question: are delays in the reticulospinal system<br/>associated with older adult’s poor capacity to learn?<br/>Our objective was to evaluate if delays in the reticulospinal system (measured via the<br/>startle reflex) and corticospinal system (measured via Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) are correlated to impairment of motor learning in older adults. We found that individuals with fast startle responses resembling those of younger adults show the most improvement and retention while individuals with delayed startle responses show the least. We also found that there was no relationship between MEP latencies and improvement and retention. Moreover, linear regression analysis indicated that startle onset latency exists within a continuum of learning outcomes suggesting that startle onset latency may be a sensitive measure to predict learning deficits in older adults. As there exists no method to determine an individual’s relative learning capacity, these results open the possibility of startle, which is an easy and inexpensive behavioral measure and can be used to determine learning deficits in older adults to facilitate better dosing during rehabilitation therapy.
startle
Aging
skill acquisition
Learning
reticulospinal
The Impact of a Starting Acoustic Stimulus and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation on Reaction Times in Unimpaired Adults