Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 23, 2026
05:05
Assessing Corticospinal Excitability During Goal-Directed Reaching Behavior
Published on: December 2, 2022
2.1K
Proprioceptive recalibration arises slowly compared to reach adaptation
Basel Zbib1, Denise Y P Henriques2, Erin K Cressman3
1School of Human Kinetics, University of Ottawa, 125 University Private, Room 360, Ottawa, ON, K1N6N5, Canada.
Experimental Brain Research
|March 26, 2016
Summary
Proprioceptive recalibration, or sensory changes in hand position estimation, occurs more slowly than motor adaptation during reaching tasks in novel visuomotor environments. This study compared the time courses of these implicit changes.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Motor Control
- Human Perception
Background:
- Reaching movements in novel visuomotor environments lead to motor adaptation, reducing errors.
- Altered visual feedback during reaching causes sensory changes, shifting proprioceptive estimates of hand position.
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine the time course of sensory changes (proprioceptive recalibration) during reaching.
- To compare the time courses of implicit sensory and motor changes.
Main Methods:
- Subjects performed reaching movements with aligned and rotated visual feedback of their hand.
- Reach errors and proprioceptive estimates were measured at various points during training.
- A within-subject design compared sensory and motor adaptation rates.
Main Results:
- Proprioceptive estimates shifted throughout training with rotated visual feedback.
- Significant sensory changes were only observed after approximately 70 trials.
- Motor adaptation, indicated by reach error reduction, occurred more rapidly within fewer trials.
Conclusions:
- Proprioceptive recalibration develops more slowly than motor adaptation in visuomotor tasks.
- The findings suggest distinct temporal dynamics for sensory and motor learning processes.
- This research provides insight into the neural mechanisms underlying sensorimotor adaptation.
