Modulation of muscle responses evoked by transcranial magnetic stimulation during the acquisition of new fine motor skills
Pascual-Leone and colleagues used transcranial magnetic stimulation to map motor cortex responses while people learned a one-handed five-finger piano exercise. In the experiment that compared kinds of practice, fifteen right-handed adults were assigned at random to three groups of five: physical practice, mental practice or no practice, over five days. Muscle recordings confirmed that the mental practice group stayed still. Both practising groups made fewer sequence errors and played with steadier timing, the physical group reduced errors significantly more than the mental group, and the no-practice group did not improve.
Pascual-Leone and colleagues used transcranial magnetic stimulation to map motor cortex responses while people learned a one-handed five-finger piano exercise. In the experiment that compared kinds of practice, fifteen right-handed adults were assigned at random to three groups of five: physical practice, mental practice or no practice, over five days. Muscle recordings confirmed that the mental practice group stayed still. Both practising groups made fewer sequence errors and played with steadier timing, the physical group reduced errors significantly more than the mental group, and the no-practice group did not improve.
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Pascual-Leone, A., Nguyet, D., Cohen, L. G., Brasil-Neto, J. P., Cammarota, A., & Hallett, M. (1995). Modulation of muscle responses evoked by transcranial magnetic stimulation during the acquisition of new fine motor skills. Journal of Neurophysiology, 74(3), 1037-1045. doi:10.1152/jn.1995.74.3.1037 https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.1995.74.3.1037