Sensorimotor integration refers to the process of combining incoming sensory information with outgoing motor commands to control movement. Short-Latency Afferent Inhibition (SAI), Long-Latency Afferent Inhibition (LAI) and Afferent Facilitation (AF) are three neurophysiological measures collected using Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to assess sensorimotor integration in humans. No studies to date have investigated the influence of tactile discrimination training on these measures. This study aimed to determine whether SAI, LAI, and AF are modulated following training on a custom-designed sensorimotor task which required participants to use their sense of touch to successfully navigate 3D printed maze with interchangeable paths. The maze training was separated into “high difficulty” and “low difficult” conditions which reflected the tactile challenge embedded within the maze. On an additional visit, no maze training was performed to serve as a control condition. Despite evidence of performance improvements during training, there were no significant changes in SAI, LAI or AF following training in either condition. Further, there was no correlation between the % change in SAI/LAI and improvements in total dwell time on the maze. As the functional significance of these measures is still unclear, these findings suggest that changes in SAI, LAI or AF may not be a valid metric to measure meaningful or functional changes related to skills or performance improvements induced by training. / Thesis / Master of Science in Kinesiology / Sensorimotor integration refers to the combination of incoming sensory information with outgoing motor commands in the nervous system to control movement. Short- Latency Afferent Inhibition, Long-Latency Afferent Inhibition and Afferent Facilitation are three measures that probe sensorimotor integration in humans using Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. Although these measures have been well studied in both healthy and clinical populations in a variety of contexts, the influence of sensorimotor training on these measures remains unclear. This thesis aimed to determine if SAI, LAI and AF change following training on a novel tactile discrimination maze task. Further, the relationship between changes in sensorimotor integration and improvements in maze performance was explored. SAI, LAI and AF were not shown to be influenced by training, and there was no association between the changes in these measures and improvements in maze performance.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/27917 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Pickersgill, Jake |
| Contributors | Nelson, Aimee, Kinesiology |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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