Influence of Acute Stress on Motor Learning and Motor Imagery Ability in Young Population

Summary

In motor learning, it 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.

Stress is a physiological or psychological response to internal or external stressors. In principle, it has an adaptive role. However, the neuroendocrine and autonomic response generated by stress can affect cognitive processes such as memory. In addition, it has been shown to influence motor learning, especially the execution of skills in the early stages of learning.

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. It is still unknown how acute stress influence the way manual tasks are learned.

On the other hand, motor imagery (MI) is a cognitive process that is an important contributor to how movements are planned and executed. Its use has been recommended to improve movement learning and task execution. For an MI program to be effective and individualized, it is imperative to know this ability. However, it is also still unknown how acute stress can affect our motor imagery ability.

The main objective of this study is to determine and quantify the effects of acute stress in the learning of a precise manual task not previously trained on four parameters of fine motor control: trajectory error, timing error, timing accuracy, and task accuracy. On the other hand, the aim is to determine if the capacity of internal visual, external visual, and kinesthetic imagery, and the temporal congruence between movement execution and imagery varies when we are subjected to acute stress.

It is expected that non-anxious, non-stressed participants who are not induced with acute stress will show better motor performance on the fine motor task and better motor imagery ability and temporal congruence. In contrast, it is expected that participants without anxiety and stress who are induced with acute stress will show poorer motor performance on the fine motor task, and poorer motor imagery ability and temporal congruence.

Conditions

• Stress, Psychological

Interventions

OTHER

Stress group

This group will perform the MAST stress protocol

OTHER

Control group

This group will perform the MAST control protocol

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

2022-09-30

Completion

2022-09-30

Countries

• France
• Spain

Study Locations