The limited research on age-related motor learning capabilities suggests that the elderly do not learn as well as the young. Potential reasons for the learning deficits are many including alterations in brain structures related to working and episodic memory and motor function. Knowing the capabilities of older adults to learn new motor skills has important implications for quality of life and the development of retraining programs for the elderly. Modern motor learning theories postulate that successful rehabilitation/retraining should result in long-term retention, transfer and generalization of newly learned and/or retrained skills. Most training strategies use repetitive practice and frequent augmented feedback: strategies which focus on performance during the acquisition of skills. The assumption that the performance levels achieved during acquisition by these methods will continue for the long-term; however, is not empirically supported. In fact, motor learning research has established that repetitive training and frequent feedback, found to enhance short-term performance, produce poorer long-term retention and transfer than schedules which vary the conditions of practice or limit augmented feedback. Two well-study paradigms that improve retention and transfer are random practice, which varies the tasks practiced, and schedules that limit knowledge of results such as faded and bandwidth feedback. Compared to static practice and frequent feedback, each produces poorer initial acquisition performance, but superior retention and transfer capabilities. Proposed mechanisms for the improved capabilities are increased activity-dependent plasticity of brain subsystems for sustained attention, and/or more developed, flexible memory representations of the motor program. A substantial research indicates that aging correlates with declines in sustained attention, episodic and working memory that could impact the effectiveness of variable practice schedules. The proposed research will compare learning of a new motor skill (lever aiming task) across four age groups under conditions of blocked (static) or random (dynamic practice) or conditions of constant or limited knowledge of results. Additionally we will run these paradigms with an MRI-compatible force transducer during functional magnetic resonance imaging of the brain.
| Wu, Will F W; Young, Doug E; Schandler, Steven L et al. (2011) Contextual interference and augmented feedback: is there an additive effect for motor learning? Hum Mov Sci 30:1092-101 |
