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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Hum. Neurosci.
Sec. Motor Neuroscience
Volume 18 - 2024 |
doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2024.1427336
Finger-Specific Effects of Age on Tapping Speed and Motor Fa9gability
Provisionally accepted- 1 ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland
- 2 Center for Neuroscience Zurich, University of Zurich, Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
- 3 Future Health Technologies, Singapore-ETH Centre, Campus for Research Excellence And Technological Enterprise (CREATE), Singapore, Singapore
Increased motor fatigability is a symptom of many neuromuscular and neurodegenerative disorders. However, it is difficult to pinpoint pathological motor fatigability, since the phenomena has not yet been fully characterised in the healthy population. In this study, we investigate how motor fatigability differs across age. Given that many disorders involve supraspinal components, we characterise motor fatigability with a paradigm that has previously been associated with supraspinal mechanisms. Finger tapping at maximal speed results in a rapid decrease in movement speed, which is a measure of motor fatigability. We collected finger tapping data in a field experiment from the general population with a smartphone app, and we investigated age differences in maximal tapping speed, as well as the decrease in tapping speed for the index, middle, and little fingers. We found that the maximal tapping speed differed significantly between young (18 – 30 years, n=194) and aged (50 – 70 years, n=176), whereas the fatigability-induced relative decrease in movement speed did not differ between the age groups (average decrease: 17.0% ± 6.9% (young) vs. 16.5% ± 7.5% (aged) decrease). Furthermore, tapping speed and motor fatigability depended on which finger was used. These findings might relate to dexterity, with more dexterous movements being more resistant to fatigue. In this study, we provide a characterisation of motor fatigability in the general population which can be used as a comparison for clinical populations in the future.
Keywords: Fa9gue, behaviour, In-the-wild data, Aging, motor fa9gability, Tapping speed, motor slowing
Received: 03 May 2024; Accepted: 22 Aug 2024.
Copyright: © 2024 Heimhofer, Neumann, Odermatt, Bächinger and Wenderoth. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Caroline C. Heimhofer, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland
Nicole Wenderoth, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland
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