Adults aged 20-30 years exhibited significantly greater beta-band corticomuscular coherence area compared to children aged 8-10 years (β 0.27), driven by greater descending connectivity.
Cross-Sectional (n=111)
Corticomuscular coherence, specifically descending oscillatory coupling, increases from childhood to adulthood, reflecting maturation of feedforward motor control networks.
Mean Difference: 0.27 (95% CI 0.03–0.51)
p-value: p=0.020
How does the neural control of fine movements develop from childhood to adulthood? Here, we investigated developmental differences in functional corticomuscular connectivity using coherence analyses in 111 individuals from four different age groups covering the age range 8-30 y. EEG and EMG were recorded while participants performed a uni-manual force-tracing task requiring fine control of force in a precision grip with both the dominant and non-dominant hand. Using beamforming methods, we located and reconstructed source activity from EEG data displaying peak coherence with the EMG activity of an intrinsic hand muscle during the task. Coherent cortical sources were found anterior and posterior to the central sulcus in the contralateral hemisphere. Undirected and directed corticomuscular coherence was quantified and compared between age groups. Our results revealed that coherence was greater in adults (20-30 yo) than in children (8-10 yo) and that this difference was driven by greater magnitudes of descending (cortex-to-muscle), rather than ascending (muscle-to-cortex), coherence. We speculate that the age-related differences reflect maturation of corticomuscular networks leading to increased functional connectivity with age. We interpret the greater magnitude of descending oscillatory coupling as reflecting a greater degree of feedforward control in adults compared to children. The findings provide a detailed characterization of differences in functional sensorimotor connectivity for individuals at different stages of typical ontogenetic development that may be related to the maturational refinement of dexterous motor control.
Beck et al. (Wed,) conducted a cross-sectional in Typically developing individuals (n=111). Adult age (20-30 years) vs. Childhood age (8-10 years) was evaluated on Beta-range corticomuscular coherence area (β 0.27, 95% CI 0.03-0.51, p=0.020). Adults aged 20-30 years exhibited significantly greater beta-band corticomuscular coherence area compared to children aged 8-10 years (β 0.27), driven by greater descending connectivity.
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