Eye-hand coordination: Effects of age, sex, and experience on brain and behaviour

这项研究的主要目的是了解控制随意运动的基本神经机制。我们的目标是表征年龄，性别和经验相关的差异，在大脑活动和行为熟练的视觉引导肢体运动。四个相关但不同的项目组成了这一总的调查路线。项目1将研究技能表现和认知运动整合的年龄，性别和经验相关差异，以及这些差异的神经基础。我们之前的资助记录了年龄，性别和技能水平对协调发展的影响，并开始研究当认知元素被包括在内时，大脑如何控制熟练的运动。我们将在这些发现的基础上，研究这些因素如何影响认知运动整合，这是一项对日常生活和许多工作/体育活动至关重要的技能，但其发展从未被记录在案。与本研究相关，我们还将探讨精英和非精英表演者的眼睛和手臂运动的空间方向解耦的行为后果的神经机制。这个项目将提供关于大脑如何发展控制基于规则的熟练动作的基本信息，作为性别和经验的函数。另外三个项目将提供深入了解运动控制的性质，在专家，以及年龄和性别相关的差异，这些人群中，使用更深入的运动心理物理的方法。项目2将通过比较非运动员与精英水平的男性和女性运动员来研究增强运动学习的机制。在项目3中，我们将继续研究协调行动的大脑网络中与性别相关的差异的神经基础。我们先前的工作已经表明，在眼手协调任务中，运动前区和顶叶皮层的大脑活动模式存在性别差异。然而，目前对这些不同的大脑活动模式的功能意义的理解非常有限。 在这里，我们将研究特定的神经过程，观察到的性别相关的大脑活动的整体模式的差异。最后，我们将研究如何使用不同的协调措施来预测优秀运动员在比赛中的表现。这一调查将产生有关大脑和行为的知识，这些知识可以转化为工业（人因工程），生物医学工程（远程机器人和医疗设备设计）以及专业运动训练和教练部门。 从根本上说，这项研究将促进我们对我们如何与周围世界中的物体互动的理解。

The broad aim of this research is to understand the fundamental neural mechanisms for controlling voluntary movement. The objectives are to characterize the age-, sex- and experience-related differences in both brain activity and behaviour for skilled visually-guided limb movements. Four related but distinct projects comprise this general line of inquiry. Project 1 will look at the age-, sex- and experience-related differences in skilled performance and cognitive motor integration, and the neural underpinnings to these differences. Our previous grant documented the effects of age, sex, and skill level on coordination development alone, and began looking at how the brain controls skilled movement when an element of cognition is included. We will build upon these findings by examining how such factors affect cognitive-motor integration a skill crucial to both daily living and many work/sport activities yet whose development has never been documented. Related to this study, we will also explore the neural mechanisms underlying the behavioral consequences of decoupling the spatial directions of eye and arm movements in elite and non-elite performers. This project will provide fundamental information about how the brain develops control for rule-based skilled movement differently as a function of sex and experience. Three further projects will provide insight into the nature of movement control in experts, as well as age and sex-related differences within these populations, using a more in-depth motor psychophysical approach. Project 2 will look at the mechanisms underlying augmented motor learning by comparing non-athletes to elite-level male and female athletes. In Project 3 we will continue our research into the neural underpinning of sex-related differences in brain networks for coordinated action. Our previous work has shown that there are sex-related differences in patterns of brain activity in the premotor and parietal cortices during eye-hand co-ordination tasks. However, there is currently only a very limited understanding of the functional significance of these different patterns of brain activity. Here we will examine the specific neurological processes that underlie observed sex-related differences in overall patterns of brain activity. Finally, we will examine how one can use different coordination measures to predict performance in elite athletes in competition. This line of inquiry will generate knowledge about brain and behaviour that can translate to the industrial (human factors engineering), biomedical engineering (telerobotic and medical equipment design), and professional sport training & coaching sectors. Fundamentally, this research will advance our understanding of how we interact with objects in the world around us.