Dynamic thumb localization and its adaptation: quantification with a novel robotic task

The thumb plays a crucial role in hand function, yet its proprioceptive abilities remain poorly understood. Here we quantified dynamic thumb localization ability, as well as how this ability adapts to a perturbation, in unimpaired participants. For this, we developed a novel task in which a robot moved the thumb in a circle and participants pressed a button when they felt their thumb aligning with a target point on a screen, receiving visual error feedback in the form of a ball jumping toward the target after they pushed the button. The task also incorporated a propriovisual rotational perturbation to elicit and measure adaptation. To characterize thumb localization ability, we varied thumb speed and rotation diameter, assessed the effect of the propriovisual rotational perturbation, and compared index finger performance. Following task familiarization, average thumb localization error was relatively consistent, with a constant error (CE) of - 5.9°, variable error (VE) of 25.2°, and absolute error (AE) of 29.2°. Errors did not change significantly with speed or circle diameter. Reversing thumb rotation temporarily increased error followed by rapid error adaptation across the next 20 trials, as would be expected if individuals adapted using a body-centered (movement-aligned) frame of reference rather than a world-centered spatial frame. Localization error was comparable for the thumb and the index finger error for the same task and was correlated with a different, robotic assessment of finger proprioception (ρ = 0.61, p = 0.001). These findings indicate that dynamic thumb localization is somewhat inaccurate, although it can leverage visual feedback within a body-centered reference frame to adapt. Further, in unimpaired adults, the dynamic localization abilities of the thumb and index finger are related.