An automated movement assessment panel for upper limb motor functions in rhesus monkeys and humans

As part of our studies of age-associated changes in motor functions, we have designed an automated movement assessment panel (MAP) to evaluate upper limb and hand movements. Here we describe two versions of the MAP, one for human testing and one for nonhuman primates, and methods for conducting parallel tests in rhesus monkeys and human volunteers. The results are reported from a battery of tests on young adult rhesus monkeys (n = 10, 5-8 years old), young adult human subjects (n = 10, 18-22 years old) and ten aged human subjects (n = 10, 66-68 years old) to demonstrate the capability of the MAP in quantifying arm and hand movement times. The performance times on the two simplest tasks tested were consistent from trial to trial, demonstrating that a stable behavioral baseline could be established for evaluating changes in motor functions over time and assessing treatments for improving motor functions. Motor learning was seen in the more complex movement tasks tested, indicating their usefulness in analyzing this behavior. Finally, age-associated changes in performance times were robustly delineated by the four tasks evaluated in the human subjects.