Influence of Arousal on Motor Learning, Memory and Motor Imagery Ability in Young Population

Summary

In motor learning is essential to consider that movements are produced by the cooperation and combination of many brain structures and are influenced by the emotions to which individuals are subjected. Several neural circuits have been identified that closely link the emotional system and the motion control system.

Arousal is associated with many emotional responses and has effects on the nervous and motor system. In line with the "Inverted 'U' Hypothesis", all levels of both high and low arousal do not allow optimal task performance, yet moderate levels lead to excellent performance. Arousal also plays a vital role in movement learning, where a critical element is memory. There is evidence that a minimum level of arousal is required to encode or record information and that that moderate levels of arousal improve memory.

Understanding how movement, emotions and interactions are regulated is significant because of the large number of movements humans perform. Of these, manual tasks represent precise movements that require the integration of many elements by the nervous system to perform these tasks successfully. How different levels of arousal influence the way manual tasks are learned is still unknown.

On the other hand, motor imagery (MI) is a cognitive process that is an important contributor to how movements are planned and executed. The use of MI has been recommended to improve movement learning and task execution. For an effective and individualize MI program is imperative to know this capacity. However, how different levels of arousal can affect our motor imagery ability is also still unknown.

The main objective of this study is to determine and quantify the effects of arousal levels in the learning of a precise manual task not previously trained on four parameters of fine motor control: time, error, speed, and accuracy. On the other hand, the aim is to determine if the ability of internal visual, external visual, and kinaesthetic imagery varies when participants are subjected to different levels of arousal.

Researches expect that non-anxious, non-stressed participants who are shown images that elicit an optimal level of arousal will show better motor performance on the fine motor task and better motor imagery ability. In contrast, researches expect that participants without anxiety and stress who are shown pictures that elicit a sub-optimal level of arousal will show poorer motor performance on the fine motor task and poorer motor imagery ability.

Conditions

• Arousal

Interventions

OTHER

Low Arousal

This group will see affective images of the International Affective Picture System with low arousal level

OTHER

Medium arousal

This group will see affective images of the International Affective Picture System with medium arousal level

OTHER

High arousal

This group will see affective images of the International Affective Picture System with high arousal level

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Alcala

  collaborator OTHER

• Universidad Complutense de Madrid

  collaborator OTHER

• European University of Madrid

  collaborator OTHER

• Claude Bernard University

  collaborator OTHER

• Susana Nunez Nagy

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Sara T Trapero Asenjo, Master · University of Alcala

• Susana N Núñez Nagy, PhD · University of Alcala

• Sara F Fernández Guinea, PhD · Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Masking

DOUBLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

35 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-06-14

Primary Completion

2022-03-18

Completion

2022-03-18

Countries

• France
• Spain

Study Locations