Abstract
We studied the effects of a single practice session of a variable task with subject-specific adjustments of task difficulty (instability) on indices of multi-finger coordination in young and elderly persons. The main hypothesis was that practicing such a task would lead to contrasting changes in the amounts of two components of variance estimated across repetitive trials within the uncontrolled manifold (UCM) hypothesis: V UCM that had no effect on total force and V ORT that affected total force. In addition, we also expected to see strong transfer effects to a different task. A variable task with graded instability was designed to encourage use of variable solutions during the accurate production of total force with two fingers. The subjects practiced with the index and middle fingers pressing on individual force sensors. Overall, the older subjects showed lower indices of performance and higher indices of both V UCM and V ORT. After about 1 h of practice, both groups showed an increase in the index of involuntary force production by non-task fingers (enslaving). Both groups improved the indices of performance. The two variance indices showed opposite effects of practice: V ORT dropped with practice, while V UCM increased leading to an increase in the total amount of variance in the space of commands to fingers and in the index of force-stabilizing synergy. Performance in a simpler, non-practiced task improved, but there was no transfer of the changes in the structure of variance. Specifically, both variance components, V ORT and V UCM, dropped in the non-practiced task. The results show that the neural system responsible for synergies stabilizing important features of performance is highly adaptable to practice of tasks designed to encourage use of variable solutions. We view the results as highly promising for future use in populations with impaired coordination characterized by low synergy indices.