Visuomotor Training to Enhance Proprioception of Contralateral Wrist Based on the Cross-Transfer Effect.

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BackgroundNeurological diseases such as stroke or Parkinson's disease are often accompanied by weakening or loss of proprioception, which seriously affects the motor control ability of the patients. However, proprioception rehabilitation is challenging due to the pain caused by impaired joints and the hard efforts that patients have to make during training. This study investigated the cross-transfer effect of short-term visuomotor training to the untrained wrist from the trained wrist, from both views of behavioral results and brain activity analyses.MethodsThirty healthy volunteers aged 25.53 ± 4.95 years were recruited for this study. They were randomly assigned into two groups: the visuomotor (n = 15) group performed visuomotor training (VM group) and the conventional training (n = 15) group (CT group) performed flexion and extension training on the right wrist. Behavioral tests (movement accuracy error, MAE) were performed both before and after training, with electroencephalogram (EEG) recorded. The movement-related cortical potentials (MRCPs), event-related potentials (ERPs) and event-related spectral perturbation (ERSP) were calculated in the test session before and after training.ResultsBehavioral results showed that after visuomotor training of the right wrist on the VM group, the mean MAE of both the right wrist and untrained left wrist were reduced (p ConclusionsVisuomotor training on the right wrist led to proprioceptive improvements in both the trained and untrained wrists, demonstrating a cross-transfer effect. These findings suggest that visuomotor training could be used in rehabilitation protocols to improve proprioception in patients with neurological diseases, offering a less painful and more efficient method to restore motor control.

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