Tactile-Enhanced Motor Practice Improves Manual Dexterity Over Visually-Guided Practice

Introduction: Manual dexterity requires multi-sensory (e.g., vision and touch) integration with movement, and is often impaired due to sensorimotor deficits in stroke survivors. Currently, neurorehabilitation involves repetitive visually-guided motor practice without particular emphasis on tactile feedback for movement. As a first step to improve post-stroke hand function, we studied the effects of providing enhanced tactile feedback during motor practice on dexterity of the non-dominant hand in healthy volunteers. Hypothesis: We hypothesized that 2, 45-minute sessions of enhanced tactile-motor practice would improve non-dominant hand dexterity more than the same duration of visuo-motor practice. Methods: Twenty healthy adults (8 males; mean age = 27.7 ± 22 years) were randomized to an enhanced tactile-motor (TM) or visuo-motor (VM) group. Volunteers performed 3, 15-minute blocks of motor practice that required 1) sorting small ( Results: The 2x4 mixed ANOVA showed a significant interaction between time and motor practice (F (3, 51) = 2.96, p = 0.04, partial η2 = .148), revealing that the change in 9HPT scores over time was different for the 2 groups. The TM group significantly improved on 9HPT from T1 to T4 (Mean difference = 2.7 s, SE = 0.53, p = 0.001), but the VM group did not improve. Conclusions: Tactile enhancement during 2 motor practice sessions can significantly improve dexterity. Future work will translate these methods to stroke rehabilitation.