The Influence of Fatigue on Trunk Motor Control and Brain Activity

Summary

This study aims at examining the influence of both physically and cognitively induced fatigue on trunk motor control on the one hand and brain activity related to movement preparation on the other hand, in healthy adult subjects. Furthermore, a comparison between the effects of both types of fatigue will be made. For this purpose a motor control task will be performed and compared before and after 3 specific interventions: i.e. a control intervention, a physical task and a cognitive task. Muscle and brain activity will be measured during each motor control task.

It is hypothesised that motor control will not be altered after a control task, i.e. seated rest for 45 minutes. With regards to the physical fatigue condition, it is expected that trunk muscles will contract earlier after this task than before due to altered motor control. Cognitive fatigue is hypothesised to have similar underlying processes as physical fatigue, thus a similar earlier muscle contraction is also expected after cognitive fatigue.

Lastly, as both types of fatigue are expected to induce a similar effect on motor control no significant differences between cognitive and physical fatigue are hypothesised. However, it is possible that the magnitude of this effect differs between types of fatigue, i.e. that 1 of both types has a bigger effect on motor control than the other.

With regards to brain activity in preparation of a motor control task similar hypotheses are formulated: no effect of the control task on brain activity, earlier and possibly increased brain activity after both fatiguing tasks, and no differences between both types of fatigue besides a possible difference in magnitude of effect.

Conditions

• Event-related Potentials
• Muscle Fatigue
• Mental Fatigue

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Control condition

45 minute rest while seated. Watching an animated movie, sleeping was not allowed.

BEHAVIORAL

Rapid Arm Movements

2 blocks of 80 trials of RAM in either a forward (n = 40) or backward (n = 40) shoulder flexion direction and back to neutral as fast as possible, with maintaining extension in the elbow. Visual cues (arrows) indicated the movement direction.

BEHAVIORAL

Physical fatigue condition

40 minutes rest while seated followed by static endurance tasks, i.e. modified Biering-Sörensen task and static abdominal curl task.

BEHAVIORAL

Cognitive fatigue condition

45 minutes of a cognitively fatiguing condition consisting of a modified incongruent Stroop color-word task.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University Ghent

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Lieven Danneels, PT, PhD · University Ghent

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Masking

SINGLE

Model

CROSSOVER

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

45 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2016-09-15

Primary Completion

2018-02-24

Completion

2018-02-24

Countries

• Belgium

Study Locations