Heritability of motor control and motor learning

The aim of this study was to elucidate the relative contribution of genes and environment on individual differences in motor control and acquisition of a force control task, in view of recent association studies showing that several candidate polymorphisms may have an effect on them. Forty-four healthy female twins performed brisk isometric abductions with their right thumb. Force was recorded by a transducer and fed back to the subject on a computer screen. The task was to place the tracing of the peak force in a force window defined between 30% and 40% of the subject's maximum force, as determined beforehand. The initial level of proficiency was defined as the number of attempts reaching the force window criterion within the first 100 trials. The difference between the number of successful trials within the last and the first 100 trials was taken as a measure of motor learning. For motor control, defined by the initial level of proficiency, the intrapair differences in monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins were 6.8 ± 7.8 and 13.8 ± 8.4, and the intrapair correlations 0.77 and 0.39, respectively. Heritability was estimated at 0.68. Likewise for motor learning intrapair differences in the increment of the number of successful trials in MZ and DZ twins were 5.4 ± 5.2 and 12.8 ± 7, and the intrapair correlations 0.58 and 0.19. Heritability reached 0.70. The present findings suggest that heredity accounts for a major part of existing differences in motor control and motor learning, but uncertainty remains which gene polymorphisms may be responsible.