The significance of job-related expertise in manual dexterity for tactile learning and somatosensory cortical plasticity in middle adulthood between 35 and 65 years of age

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The somatosensory system is highly plastic. It can be remarkably modified by short term interventions as well as by intensive and long term use of, for example, the hands. Both forms of tactile training lead to changes in the neurophysiological response to tactile stimuli and to changes in the behavioral performance in tactile perceptual tasks. It was shown that both older adults, who perform on a lower baseline level than young adults in tactile discrimination tasks, and young experts, who perform on a higher baseline level than novices of the same age, respond particularly well on tactile short-term training. This apparent contradiction shall be investigated. Therefore we plan to apply a tactile short-term training to experts of two age groups of the middle-age life span. The data shall be compared to a sample of novices, which has already been investigated. We focus on intervention-related changes on the behavioral as well as on the neurophysiological level in a pre-posttest design. The intervention consists of a tactile high frequency stimulation on a fingertip. Behavioral performance is assessed by means of tactile spatial and temporal discrimination tasks. In order to measure neurophysiological correlates of tactile discrimination electroencephalography is used. If our hypothesis that older experts benefit most of the intervention can be confirmed, this would hint towards the general importance of intensive use not only for maintaining manual dexterity but also for enhancing plasticity in older ages.