Clinical trial NCT03576391: The Influence of Fatigue on Trunk Motor Control and Brain Activity
Official title: Examining the Influence of Fatigue on Anticipatory Postural Adjustments of the Trunk Muscles and Movement-related Cortical Potentials in Healthy Subjects During a Rapid Arm Task Perturbation
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Muscle Fatigue
Mental Fatigue
Event-related Potentials
Keywords: Sensorimotor control
Feedforward
Physical Fatigue
Cognitive Fatigue
Event-related potentials
Lead sponsor: University Ghent
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2018-07-03
Enrollment: 22
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 45
Standard ages: ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: CROSSOVER
Intervention model description: Each participant will perform all 3 experimental conditions spread out over 2 test days. At test day 1 the control condition is performed. Test day 2 follows at least 5 days after the 1st one in order to make sure participants are physically and mentally recovered as the protocol at test day 1 might induce some physical or mental fatigue. On test day 2 the other 2 conditions are tested in a randomised order: either first the physical fatigue condition, followed by the cognitive fatigue condition or vice versa.
Primary purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE

Brief summary: This study aims at examining the influence of both physically and cognitively induced fatigue on trunk motor control on the one hand and brain activity related to movement preparation on the other hand, in healthy adult subjects. Furthermore, a comparison between the effects of both types of fatigue will be made. For this purpose a motor control task will be performed and compared before and after 3 specific interventions: i.e. a control intervention, a physical task and a cognitive task. Muscle and brain activity will be measured during each motor control task.

It is hypothesised that motor control will not be altered after a control task, i.e. seated rest for 45 minutes. With regards to the physical fatigue condition, it is expected that trunk muscles will contract earlier after this task than before due to altered motor control. Cognitive fatigue is hypothesised to have similar underlying processes as physical fatigue, thus a similar earlier muscle contraction is also expected after cognitive fatigue.

Lastly, as both types of fatigue are expected to induce a similar effect on motor control no significant differences between cognitive and physical fatigue are hypothesised. However, it is possible that the magnitude of this effect differs between types of fatigue, i.e. that 1 of both types has a bigger effect on motor control than the other.

With regards to brain activity in preparation of a motor control task similar hypotheses are formulated: no effect of the control task on brain activity, earlier and possibly increased brain activity after both fatiguing tasks, and no differences between both types of fatigue besides a possible difference in magnitude of effect.

Detailed description: September 2016 - January 2017. 16 healthy, adult male and female participants aged 18-45 were tested for 3 conditions on 2 separate days, i.e. a control condition on test day 1; a physical and cognitive fatiguing condition in randomised order on test day 2.

2 blocks of 80 rapid arm movements (RAM1 and RAM2) with the dominant arm were performed per condition, while electroencephalography (EEG) of the brain and surface electromyography (sEMG) of the Internal Oblique/Transversus Abdominis, External Oblique, Multifidus and Iliocostalis Lumborum pars Thoracis muscles were measured bilaterally. sEMG of the Anterior Deltoid muscle of the dominant arm was also measured. These RAM's were used to induce an internal perturbation to the postural balance of subjects and is an often used task in the study of trunk motor control. In between 2 blocks of the RAM the condition-specific interventions were given. The control condition consisted of RAM1 - 45 minute rest - RAM2; the physical fatigue condition consisted of RAM1 - 45 minute physical fatigue task - RAM2; the cognitive fatigue condition consisted of RAM1 - 45 minute cognitive fatigue task - RAM2.

The physical fatiguing task was a static endurance task for the paravertebral muscles, i.e. modified Biering-Sörensen task, followed by a static endurance task for the abdominal muscles, i.e. a static abdominal curl in 45° of trunk flexion while seated.

The cognitive fatiguing task was a modified incongruent Stroop color-word task for 45 minutes.

At the beginning of each test day several questionnaires were also administered to control for fatigue and physical activity, i.e. Checklist Individual Strength (CIS), Profile Of Mood States (POMS) and International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ).

January - February 2018. an additional 6 subjects were tested in order to increase the sample size of this study.

Statistical analysis will be performed to assess whether and to what extent both physical and cognitive fatigue might influence motor control as measured with EMG during RAM. Furthermore, the effect of both types of fatigue on cortical movement preparation will also be assessed based on the EEG measurements.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Healthy adult subjects.

Exclusion Criteria:

* People with a history of pain or current pain
* severe pathologies
* traumata
* cardiorespiratory disorders
* neurological disorders
* vestibular disorders
* endocrinologic disorders
* psychiatric and cognitive disorders
* colour blindness
* sleeping disorders
* psychological disorders or major depressions
* major surgery to the spine or upper limbs
* clinically relevant malalignments and deformities
* malignancies
* substance abuse of alcohol or drugs
* consumption of analgesics without prescription 24 hours or with prescription two weeks before testing
* use of psychotropic medication
* extreme physical activities two days before testing
* professional athletes
* pregnant women or women \< 1 year postnatally

Primary outcomes:
measure: Trunk muscle EMG latency
timeFrame: 2 hours
measure: Contingent Negative Variation
timeFrame: 2 hours
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Visual Analogue Scale for Fatigue
timeFrame: 10 seconds for every measurement
measure: Rating of Perceived Exertion/Borg
timeFrame: 5 seconds for every measurement
measure: Checklist Individual Strength
timeFrame: 5 minutes at the beginning of each test day
measure: Profile Of Mood States-Short Form
timeFrame: 5 minutes at the beginning of each test day
measure: International Physical Activities Questionnaire
timeFrame: 15 minutes at the beginning of each test day
measure: General questionnaire
timeFrame: 10 minutes at the beginning of test day 1
measure: General questionnaire-Short
timeFrame: 10 minutes at the beginning of test day 2
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Ghent
country: Belgium
facility: Vakgroep REVAKI (Ghent University - Ghent University Hospital)
Study officials:
affiliation: University Ghent
name: Lieven Danneels, PT, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: