Recent studies in motor control have shown that visuomotor rotations for reaching have narrow generalization functions: what we learn during movements in one direction only affects subsequent movements into close directions. Here we wanted to measure the generalization functions for wrist movement. To do so we had 7 subjects performing an experiment holding a mobile phone in their dominant hand...

OBJECTIVE To compare the intelligence and grip strength of orthopaedic surgeons and anaesthetists. DESIGN Multicentre prospective comparative study. SETTING Three UK district general hospitals in 2011. PARTICIPANTS 36 male orthopaedic surgeons and 40 male anaesthetists at consultant or specialist registrar grade. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Intelligence test score and dominant hand grip stren...

Does language comprehension depend, in part, on neural systems for action? In previous studies, motor areas of the brain were activated when people read or listened to action verbs, but it remains unclear whether such activation is functionally relevant for comprehension. In the experiments reported here, we used off-line theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation to investigate whether a ca...

This study examined the relationship between decreased speed-accuracy trade-off and increased neuromotor noise in girls with Turner Syndrome (TS). Fifteen girls with TS and 15 age-matched controls performed isometric force contractions with both index fingers separately at 5 force levels, based on their maximum voluntary contraction. The results revealed that (a) groups did not differ in speed-...

The aim of this study was to quantify stability of nondominant handwriting kinematics and legibility in participants with functional loss of the previously dominant hand. Twelve adult volunteers provided two handwriting samples 6 weeks apart. Handwriting tasks (Compose a Sentence, Copy Alphabet, Copy Date, Copy Sentence, and Draw Circles) were performed in cursive writing on standard white, lin...

We are reporting four cases of serious washing machine related injury that presented within a period of 5 months. All patients were young children with the mean age of 9 year-old and three had their dominant hand injured. The washing machines involved were the automatic top loader type and all injuries occurred during the spinning phase. Serious automatic washing machine injury is not uncommon ...

Previous studies have reported that concurrent manual tracking enhances smooth pursuit eye movements only when tracking a self-driven or a predictable moving target. Here, we used a control-theoretic approach to examine whether concurrent manual tracking enhances smooth pursuit of an unpredictable moving target. In the eye-hand tracking condition, participants used their eyes to track a Gaussia...

Individuals who consistently use their dominant hand for most tasks exhibit poorer memory than individuals whose handedness is relatively inconsistent, but consistent-handers' memory can be enhanced by making repetitive saccadic eye movements before attempting retrieval. One account of these effects is that inconsistent handedness and saccade execution are associated with increased interhemisph...

Exploration of force coordination has been one of the most often used approaches in studies of hand function. When holding and manipulating a hand-held object healthy individuals are typically able to highly coordinate the perpendicular (grip force; GF) with the tangential component of the contact force (load force; LF). The purpose of this review is to present the findings of our recent studie...

Reach-to-grasp actions are the outcomes of several voluntary sub-movements (Jeannerod, 1981, 1984; Paulignan et al., 1997) dependent on the object intrinsic position and shape characteristics (Fattori et al., 2009). The behaviors implemented in order to achieve the proximal goal (i.e., grasping) are further modulated by the action one wants to perform once the object has been grasped (distal go...