Minimal Impact of Low Vision on Explicit Sensorimotor Adaptation

Rehabilitation from motor system dysfunction relies on learning deliberate motor corrections through practice and feedback. This is called explicit motor adaptation. One key source of feedback for this adaptation is the visual error signal between the intended movement and the achieved movement. As people age, both motor dysfunction and visual impairment become more common, potentially compromising the visual feedback signal. Previous work has shown that visual impairment can disrupt the implicit, automatic adjustments made by the sensorimotor system. But how visual impairment influences explicit motor adaptation, a cornerstone of rehabilitation, remains unknown.

To address this gap, we recruited individuals with low vision (LV), defined as uncorrectable visual impairment resulting in functional vision loss, and age-matched controls to complete a visuomotor task designed to isolate 2 components of explicit motor adaptation: discovering a new deliberate sensorimotor strategy and recalling a previously learned one.

Surprisingly, LV was not associated with a measurable impact on either component. Individuals with LV were as effective as controls in both discovering and retrieving successful explicit sensorimotor strategies.

Together, these findings identify explicit strategies as a resilient learning mechanism that can be potentially leveraged in motor rehabilitation, even when visual input is degraded.