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

躯体感觉系统是高度可塑的。它可以通过短期干预以及通过密集和长期使用例如手来显著改变。这两种形式的触觉训练导致触觉刺激的神经生理反应的变化和触觉感知任务中的行为表现的变化。结果表明，无论是老年人，谁执行的基线水平低于年轻人在触觉辨别任务，和年轻的专家，谁执行的基线水平高于同龄的新手，特别是触觉短期培训。这一明显的矛盾将被调查。因此，我们计划对中年寿命的两个年龄组的专家进行触觉短期培训。这些数据应与已经调查过的新手样本进行比较。我们专注于干预相关的变化的行为以及在神经生理水平上的前后测设计。干预包括指尖上的触觉高频刺激。通过触觉空间和时间辨别任务来评估行为表现。为了测量触觉辨别的神经生理学相关性，使用脑电图。如果我们的假设，即老年专家受益于大部分的干预可以得到证实，这将暗示对一般的重要性，密集使用不仅保持手动灵活性，而且还提高可塑性在老年人。

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.