Paced deep breathing practices, a core component of a number of meditation programs, have been shown to enhance a variety of cognitive functions. However, their effects on complex processes such as memory, and in particular, formation and retention of motor memories, remain unknown. Here we show that a 30-minute session of deep, alternate-nostril breathing remarkably enhances retention of a newly learned motor skill. Healthy humans learned to accurately trace a given path within a fixed time duration. Following learning, one group of subjects (n = 16) underwent the 30-minute breathing practice while another control group (n = 14) rested for the same duration. The breathing-practice group retained the motor skill strikingly better than controls, both immediately after the breathing session and also at 24 hours. These effects were confirmed in another group (n = 10) that rested for 30 minutes post-learning, but practiced breathing after their first retention test; these subjects showed significantly better retention at 24 hours but not 30 minutes. Our results thus uncover for the first time the remarkable facilitatory effects of simple breathing practices on complex functions such as motor memory, and have important implications for sports training and neuromotor rehabilitation in which better retention of learned motor skills is highly desirable.
In this study, we aimed to examine features of interlimb generalization or "transfer" of newly acquired motor skills with a broader goal of better understanding the mechanisms mediating skill learning. Right-handed participants (n=36) learned a motor task that required them to make very rapid but accurate reaches to 1 of 8 randomly presented targets, thus bettering the typical speed-accuracy tradeoff. Subjects were divided into an "RL" group that first trained with the right arm and was then tested on the left, and an "LR" group that trained with the left arm and was subsequently tested on the right. We found significant interlimb transfer in both groups. Remarkably, we also observed that participants learned faster with their left arm compared to the right. We hypothesized that this could be due to a previously suggested left arm-right hemisphere advantage for movements under variable task conditions. To corroborate this, we recruited two additional groups of participants (n=22) that practiced the same task under a single target condition. This removal of task level variability eliminated learning rate differences between the arms, yet, interlimb transfer remained robust and symmetric, as in the first experiment. Additionally, the approach adopted to reduce errors during learning, though heterogeneous across subjects particularly in our second experiment, was transferred to the untrained arm. These findings may be best explained as the outcome of the operation of cognitive strategies during the early stages of motor skill learning.
Objectives: To investigate whether the relationship between arm use and motor impairment post-stroke is influenced by the hemisphere of damage. Methods: Right-handed patients with unilateral left hemisphere damage (LHD) or right (RHD) (n=58; 28 LHD, 30 RHD) were recruited for this study. The Arm Motor Ability Test and Functional Impact Assessment were used to derive arm use patterns. The Fugl-Meyer motor assessment scale was used to quantify the level of motor impairment. Results: A significant interaction between patient group and impairment level was observed for contralesional, but not ipsilesional arm use. For lower impairment levels, contralesional (right arm for LHD and left arm for RHD) arm use was greater in LHD than RHD patients. In contrast, for greater levels of impairment, there were no arm use differences between the two patient groups. Conclusions: When motor impairment is significant, it overrides potential effects of stroke laterality on the patterns of arm use. However, a robust influence of hemisphere of damage on the patterns of arm use is evident at lower impairment levels. This may be attributed to previously described arm preference effects. These findings suggest adoption of distinct strategies for rehabilitation following left versus right hemisphere damage in right-handers, at least when the impairment is moderate to low. (JINS, 2019, 25, 470–478)
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