Differences in the Magnitude of Motor Skill Acquisition and Interlimb Transfer between Left- and Right-Handed Subjects after Short-Term Unilateral Motor Skill Practice

Differences in the Magnitude of Motor Skill Acquisition and Interlimb Transfer between Left- and Right-Handed Subjects after Short-Term Unilateral Motor Skill Practice

YI FAN WANG,¹ JUN ZHAO,¹ JANOS NEGYESI² and RYOICHI NAGATOMI^1,2

¹Department of Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan
²Division of Biomedical Engineering for Health and Welfare, Tohoku University Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan

Motor skill practice improves performance not only in the trained - but also in the untrained contralateral limb - a phenomenon called as interlimb transfer. Handedness affects motor skill acquisition and interlimb transfer, but it remains unknown whether handedness affects interlimb transfer when practicing with the dominant or non-dominant limb. We have hypothesized that interlimb transfer of skill acquisition differs between left- and right-handed participants, and that right- as compared with left-hand motor skill practice shows greater interlimb transfer, regardless of handedness. Strongly left-hand (n = 12, aged 27.3 ± 4.4 years; 3 female) and right-hand dominant (n = 12, 20.7 ± 3.8 years; 5 female) subjects with no history of neurological or orthopedic disorders performed the grooved pegboard test before and after 4 blocks of practice on the same apparatus. Subjects were timed on their speed of the task. Right-handed subjects failed to improve manual performance in their right hand after right- or left-hand motor practice. In contrast, they showed improvement on the left hand in each condition. These data suggest greater interlimb transfer after right-hand motor skill practice, but no interlimb transfer after left-hand practice. On the other hand, our results show consistent interlimb transfer effects in left-handed subjects, irrespective of whether the dominant left or the non-dominant right arm has been initially trained. In conclusion, our results add to the body of literature by detecting the differences in the magnitude of motor skill acquisition and interlimb transfer between left- and right-handed subjects after short-term unilateral motor skill practice.

Keywords —— cross-education; grooved pegboard test; handedness; motor skill acquisition; side-dominance

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Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 2020, 251, 31-37

Correspondence: Ryoichi Nagatomi, Department of Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, 2-1 Seiryo-machi, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8575, Japan.

e-mail: nagatomi@med.tohoku.ac.jp