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Creators: Schaefer, Sydney
All Subjects: Transfer

Using kinematic data to identify movement patterns shared between tasks: A way to explain transfer

Description

In motor training, transfer is defined as the gain/loss of performance in one task as a result of training on another. In our laboratory, we have observed that training on a multi-joint coordination task (which simulates arm and wrist movement when feeding) transfers to a dexterity task (which simulates finger and hand movement when dressing), such that there are improvements in the dexterity task that emerge without having trained on that specific task. More recently, we have shown that the dexterity task transfers to the multi-joint coordination task. These collective findings suggest that there are shared movement patterns between these two functional motor tasks that may yield this bi-directional transfer effect. Therefore, the objective of this thesis project was to collect kinematic data of the hand to use in future principal component analyses to better understand the underlying mechanism of transfer between these two functional motor tasks. The joint angles of the hand were recorded during twenty second trials of the multi-joint coordination task and the dexterity task. The ranges of motion for the joints in the hand during naïve performance of both motor tasks were analyzed. From a linear regression analysis, we observe that the hand’s ranges of motion were strongly correlated between the two tasks, which suggests that these two functionally different tasks may share movement patterns in terms of joint angles. This similarity of joint angles of the hand may play a role in why we observe this bi-directional transfer between the dexterity and multi-joint coordination tasks. Following neurological injury, patients participate in physical therapy in order to retrain their nervous system to restore lost motor function(s). If patients can only practice a limited number of activities in therapy, our data suggest that other activities may also improve through transfer of training. Kinematic data collection may inform how much a patient improves with motor training and why there may be an improvement in untrained motor tasks.

ContributorsConnor, Sydney Christine (Author) / Schaefer, Sydney (Thesis director) / Peterson, Daniel (Committee member) / Harrington Bioengineering Program (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)

Created2017-12

Relationship between Motor Generalization and Motor Transfer

Description

Adapting to one novel condition of a motor task has been shown to generalize to other naïve conditions (i.e., motor generalization). In contrast, learning one task affects the proficiency of another task that is altogether different (i.e. motor transfer). Much more is known about motor generalization than about motor transfer, despite of decades of behavioral evidence. Moreover, motor generalization is studied as a probe to understanding how movements in any novel situations are affected by previous experiences. Thus, one could assume that mechanisms underlying transfer from trained to untrained tasks may be same as the ones known to be underlying motor generalization. However, the direct relationship between transfer and generalization has not yet been shown, thereby limiting the assumption that transfer and generalization rely on the same mechanisms. The purpose of this study was to test whether there is a relationship between motor generalization and motor transfer. To date, ten healthy young adult subjects were scored on their motor generalization ability and motor transfer ability on various upper extremity tasks. Although our current sample size is too small to clearly identify whether there is a relationship between generalization and transfer, Pearson product-moment correlation results and a priori power analysis suggest that a significant relationship will be observed with an increased sample size by 30%. If so, this would suggest that the mechanisms of transfer may be similar to those of motor generalization.

ContributorsSohani, Priyanka (Author) / Schaefer, Sydney (Thesis advisor) / Daliri, Ayoub (Committee member) / Honeycutt, Claire (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)

Created2018

A Systematic Review of Racial Inclusivity in Stroke Rehabilitation Research

Description

SUMMARY: A failed attempt to conduct a systematic review of disparities in racial inclusivity in stroke rehabilitation research: A call to action Group Members: Adeline Beeler & Mikayla McNally Faculty Mentor(s): Dr. Sydney Schaefer & Dr. Keith Lohse Topic Overview: Stroke is responsible for the death of an individual every four minutes in the United States. While all Americans are gravely affected by this statistic, Black Americans are at a significantly increased risk of first stroke incidence when compared to their white counterparts, majorly due to heightened prevalence of stroke risk factors. Not only does race contribute as a factor in stroke incidence, but it also has a considerable impact in the physical impairment of Black Americans following stroke occurrence. While it still remains unclear as to whether or not stroke plays a significant role in stroke rehabilitation efforts, there is a clearly demonstrated need for increased reporting or participation of Black Americans in stroke rehabilitation clinical trials to have the ability to conduct a systematic review of these racial disparities in the near future. In the analysis of 36 stroke rehabilitation-related clinical research studies, 80% of selected trials failed to report any participant racial demographics, with 77.3% of the NIH-funded trials not reporting, as well. Out of the 7 trials that did provide some sort of participant racial information, only 5 successfully provided statistically significant racial data compared to the remainder that simply categorized participants’ race as “white” or “other.” In order to fully investigate the effects of race on stroke rehabilitation, it is imperative that researchers collect and report equally distributed and diverse participant racial data when publishing clinical research. Potential methods of improvement for researchers to include more racially diverse subject populations include more comprehensive and in-depth advertising and recruitment strategies for their studies. Research Methods: In order to produce accurate analyses of the current state of the relationship between race and stroke rehabilitation efforts, 36 stroke rehabilitation clinical research trials from various locations across the United States were identified using the Centralized Open-Access Rehabilitation Database for Stroke (SCOAR). These trials were evaluated in order to extract relevant data, such as number of trial participants, average age of participants, if the research trial was funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH) or not, and any reported participant racial demographic details. Trends across these categories were compared between all trials to determine if any disparities existed in providing data sufficient to support the relationship between varying racial populations and stroke rehabilitation efforts. Future Project Efforts: Future efforts will include the completion of submitting a Point of View/Directions for Research article for publication to offer an opportunity for clinical and basic researchers to examine the discrepancies surrounding racial inclusivity in stroke rehabilitation clinical research. The aim is to improve the ability of clinicians to interpret the literature, translate research studies into practices, and better direct future experiments. Further identification of stroke rehabilitation clinical research trials will be necessary, as well as modifications to current written work content.

ContributorsBeeler, Adeline (Author) / McNally, Mikayla (Co-author) / Schaefer, Sydney (Thesis director) / Lohse, Keith (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Harrington Bioengineering Program (Contributor)

Created2021-12