Open AccessEffects of an Exhaustive Exercise on Motor Skill Learning and on the Excitability of Primary Motor Cortex and Supplementary Motor Area
Author(s) -
Marinella Coco,
Vincenzo Perciavalle,
Paolo Cavallari,
Valentina Perciavalle
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.59
H-Index - 148
eISSN - 1536-5964
pISSN - 0025-7974
DOI - 10.1097/md.0000000000002978
Subject(s) - sma* , transcranial magnetic stimulation , primary motor cortex , supplementary motor area , medicine , motor cortex , physical medicine and rehabilitation , blood lactate , motor learning , task (project management) , motor skill , motor area , neuroscience , stimulation , psychology , blood pressure , heart rate , computer science , management , algorithm , psychiatry , economics
We examined, on 28 healthy adult subjects, the possible correlations of an exhaustive exercise, and the consequent high blood lactate levels, on immediate (explicit) and delayed (implicit) motor execution of sequential finger movements (cognitive task). Moreover, we determined with transcranial magnetic stimulation whether changes in motor performance are associated with variations in excitability of primary motor area (M1) and supplementary motor area (SMA). We observed that, after an acute exhaustive exercise, the large increase of blood lactate is associated with a significant worsening of both explicit and implicit sequential visuomotor task paradigms, without gender differences. We also found that, at the end of the exhaustive exercise, there is a change of excitability in both M1 and SMA. In particular, the excitability of M1 was increased whereas that of SMA decreased and, also in this case, without gender differences. These results support the idea that an increase of blood lactate after an exhaustive exercise appears to have a protective effect at level of primary cortical areas (as M1), although at the expense of efficiency of adjacent cortical regions (as SMA).