Exploring Behavioral Correlates of Afferent Inhibition
by
Claudia V. Turco 1, Mitchell B. Locke 1, Jenin El-Sayes 1, Mark Tommerdahl 2 and Aimee J. Nelson 1,*
Claudia V. Turco 1, Mitchell B. Locke 1, Jenin El-Sayes 1, Mark Tommerdahl 2 and Aimee J. Nelson 1,*
1
Department of Kinesiology, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4L8, Canada
2
Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Brain Sci. 2018, 8(4), 64; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci8040064
Received: 15 March 2018 / Revised: 7 April 2018 / Accepted: 9 April 2018 / Published: 11 April 2018
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Neurophysiological Correlates to Behavioural Performance in Motor Learning)
(1) Background: Afferent inhibition is the attenuation of the muscle response evoked from transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) by a prior conditioning electrical stimulus to a peripheral nerve. It is unclear whether the magnitude of afferent inhibition relates to sensation and movement; (2) Methods: 24 healthy, young adults were tested. Short-latency afferent inhibition (SAI) and long-latency afferent inhibition (LAI) were obtained following median and digital nerve stimulation. Temporal tactile acuity was assessed with a temporal order judgement (TOJ) task, spatial tactile acuity was assessed using a grating orientation task (GOT), and fine manual dexterity was assessed with the Pegboard task; (3) Results: Correlation analyses revealed no association between the magnitude of SAI or LAI with performance on the TOJ, GOT, or Pegboard tasks; (4) Conclusion: The magnitude of SAI and LAI does not relate to performance on the sensory and motor tasks tested. Future studies are needed to better understand whether the afferent inhibition phenomenon relates to human behavior.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
transcranial magnetic stimulation; afferent inhibition; LAI; SAI; tactile acuity; manual dexterity
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Turco, C.V.; Locke, M.B.; El-Sayes, J.; Tommerdahl, M.; Nelson, A.J. Exploring Behavioral Correlates of Afferent Inhibition. Brain Sci. 2018, 8, 64.
Show more citation formats
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
