Proprioceptive Localization Ability - Research Paper Example

Abstract Introduction Proprioception is the ability of the body to sense stimuli without the aid of vision, ultimately stemming from; equilibrium, motion and position. Proprioceptive localization is affected by how different sensory receptors relay information to the CNS. Many Researchers have stated that shoulder-elbow angle (joint angles), type of limb movements (passive or active) and vision are all factors influencing proprioceptive functioning. Aim This study aimed at finding how effective proprioception was by matching the left and right fingers at different targets on the frame, in the absence of vision. Method Two ACU ‘Advanced Motor Control and Learning’ students of all ages and both sexes from all classes participated in the ‘Proprioceptive localization ability’ experiment, where they were placed into groups of three. The group members were designated a role each, one being the participant and the other two being experimenters (guide and recorder). Nine targets were located on the frame and the subject’s right finger was placed (passively by experimenter) on a target at random, whilst being blindfolded. The subject then had to align there left finger (beneath the frame) with the right finger (above the frame). A ruler was used to measure the errors which were recorded and average errors calculated and recorded too. Results Errors occurred almost evenly, however, L-R errors were high in most of the targets with 7.5cmL recording the highest level. F-B errors were quite low in general. Different reasons were given in the study with passive, shoulder and hand angle being some of factors. Conclusion The study concluded that, increased sensory receptor activity, use of vision, reduced shoulder and hand angle increases localization. Introduction Proprioception is the ability of the body to sense stimuli arising from equilibrium, motion and position. Different studies have investigated how proprioception works. Tendons, muscles and joints have sensory receptors. The receptors relay information of force and tissue deformation to the CNS (central nervous system). The CNS in turn coordinates the joint sensory receptor’s information and through proprioception location of a part of the body is possible Fuentes, & Bastian, (2009). Niessen, Veeger & Janssen (2009), Proprioception uses movement or dynamic sensation and static sensation to locate a body. The two sensations (dynamic and static) directly relate to the body’s static and dynamic balance. Proprioception localization is important in the field of health; especially in cases of ankle sprains Dijkerman & De Haan (2007) &. Goble, Lewis & Brown (2006). Physiologists; therefore, apply this fact during proprioceptive exercises to help such victims control positions of wounded joint. Different studies have been carried in the past in regard to proprioceptive localization. To find out how precise prospective localization is; in one study information from three different sources was obtained. The information included visual information, right hand proprioceptive information and left hand proprioceptive information. Proprioceptive localization where visual information was used to locate an index finger was found to be more precise than it would have been found using proprioception only or vision only Fiehler, Rösler, & Henriques (2010) & Jones & Henriques (2010). This means that the CNS information conversion is highly involved where sight complements locating the index finger’s tip rather than vision information only or proprioceptive information only. An additional study was further carried out to find out whether the sensory information had additional impact on the information conveyed to the CNS. Dijkerman & De Haan (2007), Cressman & Henriques (2009) & Wilson, Wong & Gribble, (2010) in their study investigated whether seeing an entire arm increased proprioceptive information compared to seeing the fingertip only. The experiment did not provide any significant effects. Therefore, hypothesize that precision improved by seen the hand was not supported by the experiment. The study concluded that locating finger’s position did require more than just seen the hand, seen the finger and proprioception. Therefore, sensory signals relay more information to the CNS impacting proprioceptive localization. Another study was conducted using horizontal plane to investigate whether there was any effect of different body location in relation to proprioceptive information Cressman & Henriques (2009) and Goble, & Brown (2010). In this experiment body posture, joint angles were taken into considerations. The study found that the shorter the distance of the hand from the shoulder the more the precision and the long the distance of the hand from the shoulder the low the precision. In addition, proprioception improved on moving the shoulder from left to the right direction in reference to precision and accuracy. In another study proprioception and visual was used to find out whether sensory information from the joints, skin and muscle affected direction; in this case left to right and front to back. Visual adaptation was evident in left to the right direction while proprioception was evident in front to back directions Fiehler, Rösler, & Henriques (2010). In addition, it was found that moving the hand passively decreased proprioceptive information while the information was found to increase when the hand was moved actively Fuentes, C.T., & Bastian, A.J. (2010), Dijkerman & De Haan (2007) & Cressman & Henriques (2009). This experiment aimed at assessing the characteristics of proprioceptive in absence of vision by aligning the right and left finger. The right finger was passively moved via a tester. It is hypothesized that lack of vision will increase errors in all directions. Methods Participants Male and female student from two classes’ of Australian Catholic University of all ages participated in this experiment. The students were dominantly right and left handed. Materials Ruler, blindfold, G-clamps and picture frame (700x500mm) Procedure The students were grouped into groups of three students where each group had two experimenters (recorder and guide) and one participant. The picture frame was clamped using G-clamp. The experiment’s task required the participant to match the left finger at the bottom of the frame with the right finger at the top of the frame. The right finger was supposed to remain gentle since the frame’s surface is fairly soft until it reaches the target see picture1 below. The picture frame had nine targets marked (L: Left, R: Right, B: Back, F: Front). In each target three trials were performed giving a total of 27 trials. All trials were carried randomly. The participants were not told the results and no feedback was provided until the experiment was through. A ruler was used to measure errors. During the measurement the left fingertip remained in place while the right fingertip was removed. The three experimenters measured the distance from the mid-left fingertip and the focus of the targets. Each error front-back (F-B) and left-right (L-R) was separately measured. Class result mean was calculated and results tabulated table1. Picture 1 retrieved from Lee K. (2012) Results From the class average error results in table 1 and graph 1 below; it is evident that big error margin were recorded on the L-R direction while low error margins occurred on the F-B direction. On average, the highest L-R error was recorded on the left direction at 7.5cm of 1.8cm. The least L-R error occurred at 15cm back direction of 1.2cm. The highest F-B error was recorded at 7.5cm left direction of 1.5cm. The 7.5cm left is larger than 15cm left. Targets 15cmB 7.5cmB 0.0cm 7.5cmF 15cmF 15cmL 7.5cmL 7.5cmR 15cmR Average LR Error (cm) 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.4 1.8 1.5 1.8 1.4 1.3 Average FB Error (cm) 1.1 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.4 1.1 1.5 1 1 Table 1 mean LR and FB class errors Graph 1: Graphical presentation of class mean LR and FB errors (cm) Discussion Proprioceptive accuracy was passively investigated in absence of vision to locate the left finger using the right finger via the picture frame. Previous findings have concluded that proprioceptive localization was enhanced by active movement. Fuentes, C.T., & Bastian, A.J. (2010), Dijkerman & De Haan (2007) & Cressman & Henriques (2009) in their study found that moving the hand actively over a frame increased proprioception information. In this case passive sensation was used to alter proprioceptive localization ability. From the results, the highest recorded error was on the left direction at 7.5cm and decreased from 7.5cmL to 15cmR. This is possibly because Cressman & Henriques (2009) and Goble, & Brown (2010).studies show that moving the shoulder from the left direction to the right direction the limb distance decreases and the angle between the hand and the shoulder also decreases. Consequently, proprioception localization improves in regards to precision and accuracy. On the other hand, proprioceptive localization precision decreases as the shoulder is moved away from the right side to the left. From the mean class errors, the left-right errors were quite high in most of targets and there was consistency. The 7.5cm left error was high compared to 15cm left. Although this was unanticipated in this case it is assumed that this might be related to the arm’s working space. This also indicates that the kinaesthetic localization ability can be improved following experience of the limb’s function Cressman & Henriques (2009). The F-B errors were relatively low across the targets compared to left-right errors. However, there was consistency increase in errors from 15cm-back to 15cm-front with lowest values recorded on the right direction. This is supported by the findings of Van Beers, Wolpert, & Haggard, (2002) and Jones, Cressman & Henriques (2010) on sensory adaptation where they found that signals of proprioceptive are related to joint angle. They found that the smaller the joint angle the high the signals to the CNS and hence high precision. Their study also found that proprioceptive adaptations were highly responsive on front to back direction than right to left direction. This also could be accounted for the reason behind high L-R errors because proprioception was found to be low on right to left direction. In addition, Fiehler, Rösler, & Henriques (2010) study showed that while Visual adaptation was evident in left to the right direction proprioception was evident in front to back directions. Lack of vision could also be accounted for high errors in L-R. These factor also support the reason behind increase in errors from 15cm-back to 15cm-front. Other studies Niessen, Veeger & Janssen (2009) & Ren & Crawford (2009) have looked on how passive and active limb movement impact localization performance. The studies used experiment to compare two passive and two active movements, the study found that the performance and central controls were related. On moving body parts passively, information regarding the hand movement and joint position is conveyed through sensitive receptors to the CNS. The CNS in turn interprets the stimuli. During active movement efferent information is strongly conveyed guiding the hand to the location of the target Jones, Cressman & Henriques (2010) and Goble, Lewis & Brown (2006). In addition, passive movement has been found to have reduced precision as compared to active movement on hand localization Fuentes, C.T., & Bastian, A.J. (2010), Dijkerman & De Haan (2007) & Cressman & Henriques (2009). Therefore, passive movement used in this study was also accounted for the increased inaccuracy of the mean class results. An active movement would have given more precise and accurate results than passive movement. In another study, passive and active finger movement has been studied in relation to the activity of the cortical. The study found that passive movement had reduced cortical activity and impacted only on the contralateral primary and secondary somatosensory no doubt this this physiology was applied in this study following passive sensation. In addition to the passive impact cortical activity, active movement activates supplementary motor area, premotor, bilateral area of somatosensory, premotor cortex, basal ganglia and cerebellum ipsilateral Bock (2010), Cressman & Henriques (2009), Dijkerman & De Haan (2007) & Sarlegna, Gauthier, Bourdin, Vercher & Blouin (2006). The study concluded that central vusiomotor muscles activity affects proprioceptive system more in active movement than passive. Therefore, the motor activity was concluded to have been inactively involved in this study leading to increase in errors. Using a ruler to measure errors could have also contributed highly on error discrepancies. This is because other measuring equipment like infrared devices gave more accurate result compared to a ruler. For example Optrok 2010 system measured coordinates of a 3-dimensional with a 0.5mm precision all around Van Beers, Wolpert, & Haggard, (2002). Holding all other environmental conditions constant the participant’s proprioceptive performance was supposed to increase. However, following the destruction among the experimenters during the experiment session relatively high and inconsistency errors were inevitable. This is because the experimenters’ concentration was disturbed and could not accurately locate the target. Fiehler, Rösler, & Henriques (2010), Vision has been associated with increased proprioceptive. In this case also lack of vision could also be a reason behind low precision. The study therefore, recommends more conducive environment (destruction free). A more precise measuring instrument will be encouraged in future for accuracy than a ruler. Passive and active movements should be taken into account in proprioception localization study and use of vision should be considered during the study. Conclusion Active and passive sensation, shoulder angle from elbow, vision, measuring equipment accuracy, environment where the study is being carried were found to greatly impact on the precision. This study aimed at finding how effective proprioception was by matching left and right finger at different distance randomly. The study found that movement of the hand from left to right had high errors while the errors from front to back were low. The effect was accounted to hand and shoulder angle difference and motor activity. Therefore, sensory motor activities were concluded to play a major a part in locating a target Cressman. & Henriques, (2009). The functional ability was also concluded to alter different theories. This is because from the results the error on 7.5cm left was found to be high compared to that on 15 cm left a fact which differed with studied theories that the further the hand is from the shoulder the larger the error Van Beers, Wolpert, & Haggard, (2002) and Jones, Cressman & Henriques (2010). References Bock O. (2010). Components of sensorimotor adaptations in young and elderly subjects. Experimental: Brain Research, 160:259-263 Cressman E.K. & Henriques D.Y.(2009). Sensory recalibration of hand position following visuomotor adaptation. Journal of Neurophysiology 102(6):3505-3518 Dijkerman H.C. & De Haan E.H. (2007). Somatosensory processes subserving perception and action. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences 30(2):189-201 Fiehler K., Rosler F. & Henriques D.Y. (2010). Interaction between gaze and visual and proprioceptive position judgments. Experiemental Brain Research 203(3):485-498 Fuentes, C.T., & Bastian, A.J. (2010). Where is your arm? Variations in proprioception across space and tasks. Journal of Neurophysiology, 103, 164-171. Doi: 10.1152/jn.00494. Goble D.J., & Brown S.H. (2010). Upper limb asymmetries in the perception of proprioceptively determined dynamic position sense. Journal of Experimental Psychology 36(3):768-775 Goble D.J., Lewis C.A. & Brown S.H. (2006). Upper limb asymmetries in the utilization of proprioceptive feedback. Experimental Brain Research 168(1-2):307-311 Jones S.A., Cressman E.K. & Henriques D.Y. (2010). Proprioceptive localization of the left and right hands. Experimental Brain Research 204(3):373-383 Jones S.A. & Henriques D.Y. (2010). Memory for proprioceptive and multisensory targets is partially coded relative to gaze. Neurophyschologia 48(13):3782-3792 Lee K. (2012). EXSC330 Advanced motor control and learning tutorial 10 notes. Sydney:Australian catholic University. Niessen M.H., Veeger D.H. & Janssen T.W.(2009). 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