Neural mechanism of facilitation system during physical fatigue

PLoS One. 2013 Nov 20;8(11):e80731. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0080731. eCollection 2013.

Abstract

An enhanced facilitation system caused by motivational input plays an important role in supporting performance during physical fatigue. We tried to clarify the neural mechanisms of the facilitation system during physical fatigue using magnetoencephalography (MEG) and a classical conditioning technique. Twelve right-handed volunteers participated in this study. Participants underwent MEG recording during the imagery of maximum grips of the right hand guided by metronome sounds for 10 min. Thereafter, fatigue-inducing maximum handgrip trials were performed for 10 min; the metronome sounds were started 5 min after the beginning of the handgrip trials. The metronome sounds were used as conditioned stimuli and maximum handgrip trials as unconditioned stimuli. The next day, they were randomly assigned to two groups in a single-blinded, two-crossover fashion to undergo two types of MEG recordings, that is, for the control and motivation sessions, during the imagery of maximum grips of the right hand guided by metronome sounds for 10 min. The alpha-band event-related desynchronizations (ERDs) of the motivation session relative to the control session within the time windows of 500 to 700 and 800 to 900 ms after the onset of handgrip cue sounds were identified in the sensorimotor areas. In addition, the alpha-band ERD within the time window of 400 to 500 ms was identified in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (Brodmann's area 46). The ERD level in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex was positively associated with that in the sensorimotor areas within the time window of 500 to 700 ms. These results suggest that the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is involved in the neural substrates of the facilitation system and activates the sensorimotor areas during physical fatigue.

Publication types

  • Randomized Controlled Trial
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Brain / physiology
  • Cortical Synchronization / physiology
  • Fatigue / physiopathology*
  • Hand Strength / physiology
  • Humans
  • Magnetoencephalography
  • Male
  • Motivation
  • Nervous System Physiological Phenomena*
  • Pain Measurement
  • Statistics as Topic

Grants and funding

The authors thank Forte Science Communication for editorial assistance with the manuscript. This work was supported in part by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research B (KAKENHI: 23300241) from Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) of Japan and by the grant from Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare of Japan. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. No additional external funding received for this study.