Separability of Human Motor Memories during Reaching Adaptation with Force Cues

Abstract

Judging by the breadth of our motor repertoire during daily activities, it is clear that acquiring multiple motor skills is a hallmark of the human motor system. However, for reaching movements the different planning conditions under which this is possible in laboratory settings have remained a challenging question. Considering the sensitivity of limb afferent feedback relative to externally applied forces, we hypothesised that independent cues delivered by means of background loads could support simultaneous formation of different motor memories of various velocity-dependent force fields. We demonstrate in a series of experiments that indeed healthy adults can form internal priors about opposite force fields, independently of the direction of the background force cue. However, when the cue and force field were only related by their magnitude, a separation was still observed but the associated mechanism was subject to interference. Finally, we highlight that this paradigm allows dissociating trial-by-trial acquisition of internal representations from within-trial feedback adaptation, as these two adaptation mechanisms are associated with different time scales that can be measured reliably. Significance StatementThe conditions under which humans can adapt to different contexts in parallel remain the subject of active debates. Mounting evidence highlights that contextual factors linked to movement planning are necessary to form different motor memories. Here we show that background forces indicative of the direction of a force field could play the role of contextual factors, and enable dual adaptation to different force fields. However, we uncovered that when the cue and the force field were in the same direction but of different magnitudes, the motor memories were still distinct but subject to interference. We further show that different timescales of adaptation observed can be explained by offline and online mechanisms in a model of reaching adaptation and control.