Preserved and impaired aspects of predictive grip force control in cerebellar patients

To analyze preserved and impaired aspects of feedforward grip force control during cyclic arm movements with a hand-held object after cerebellar damage.

We tested eight subjects with unilateral or bilateral cerebellar pathologies and eight healthy control subjects. Participants performed cyclic vertical arm movements with a hand held instrumented object at three different speeds.

Compared to controls, patients excerted increased grip forces. The minimum force ratio between grip force and load force was constant across all movement frequencies, suggesting that patients anticipated speed-related changes in load magnitudes by adjusting the grip force. Thus the scaling of grip force level to self-generated load magnitudes was preserved. The coupling between grip and load profiles was assessed by cross correlation analysis. Patients exhibited significantly decreased maximum coefficients of cross correlation implicating impaired anticipation of inertial load fluctuations. However feedforward control could be preserved, as obvious from zero time lags of the maximum cross correlation coefficient.

Our findings suggest that cerebellar lesions affect the processing of predictive grip force modulation in anticipation of inertial loads. Our results add further evidence to the theoretical concept that the cerebellum implements internal feedforward models. However, preserved functions may indicate compensatory mechanisms or extra-cerebellar aspects of grip and load force regulation.

The observed dissociation of performance deficits may have direct clinical implication and may guide the development of individual therapeutic strategies for patients with cerebellar disorders.