Induced discomfort promotes executive function while walking with(out) an artificial neuromuscular impairment

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Science
• Motor Control

Background:

• Neuromotor disorders impair locomotion and attention, complicating the study of motor adaptation and executive function.
• Understanding the interplay between motor control and cognitive processes is crucial for addressing these disorders.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how artificial neuromuscular impairment and associated discomfort affect executive function during locomotion.
• To explore the impact of sensorimotor perturbation on motor adaptation and cognitive performance.

Main Methods:

• Healthy adults walked with an artificial gait perturbation induced by electrical stimulation, creating discomfort.
• Participants performed an executive function task with neutral and affectively charged stimuli during walking.
• Conditions included artificial impairment, control, and sham (discomfort-only) stimulation.

Main Results:

• Discomfort, regardless of affective task load, significantly improved participants' ability to inhibit distracting information.
• The hypothesis that discomfort would selectively tax emotional executive function and motor adaptation would tax logical executive function was not supported.
• Moderate discomfort during physical activity enhanced inhibitory control, potentially by increasing arousal.

Conclusions:

• Sensorimotor perturbations that induce internal discomfort can reveal cognitive effects not observed with environmental manipulations.
• Operating outside one's comfort zone may be beneficial for cognitive performance during physical activity.
• Discomfort appears to be a mediator of enhanced executive function, particularly inhibitory control, during locomotion.