NCT04912713

Influence of Acute Stress on Motor Learning and Motor Imagery Ability in Young Population

Completed NA Last updated 23 June 2023

What this trial tests

NA trial testing Stress group in Stress, Psychological in 62 participants. Completed in 30 September 2022.

Timeline

14 June 2021

Primary endpoint
30 September 2022

30 September 2022

Quick facts

Lead sponsor	Susana Nunez Nagy
Phase	NA
Status	Completed
Study type	INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation	randomized
Design	parallel
Masking	double
Primary purpose	basic science
Enrollment	62
Start date	14 June 2021
Primary completion	30 September 2022
Estimated completion	30 September 2022
Sites	4 locations across France, Spain

Drugs / interventions tested

• Stress group
• Control group — full drug profile →

Conditions studied

• Stress, Psychological — all drugs for Stress, Psychological →

Sponsor

Susana Nunez Nagy

Who can join

Adults 18 to 35, any sex, with Stress, Psychological. Patients with the condition only — healthy volunteers not accepted.

Sponsor's own description

In motor learning, it is essential to consider that movements are produced by the cooperation and combination of many brain structures and are influenced by the emotions to which individuals are subjected. Several neural circuits have been identified that closely link the emotional system and the motion control system.

Stress is a physiological or psychological response to internal or external stressors. In principle, it has an adaptive role. However, the neuroendocrine and autonomic response generated by stress can affect cognitive processes such as memory. In addition, it has been shown to influence motor learning, especially the execution of skills in the early stages of learning.

Understanding how movement, emotions and interactions are regulated is significant because of the large number of movements humans perform. Of these, manual tasks represent precise movements that require the integration of many elements by the nervous system to perform these tasks successfully. It is still unknown how acute stress influence the way manual tasks are learned.

On the other hand, motor imagery (MI) is a cognitive process that is an important contributor to how movements are planned and executed. Its use has been recommended to improve movement learning and task execution. For an MI program to be effective and individualized, it is imperative to know this ability. However, it is also still unknown how acute stress can affect our motor imagery ability.

The main objective of this study is to determine and quantify the effects of acute stress in the learning of a precise manual task not previously trained on four parameters of fine motor control: trajectory error, timing error, timing accuracy, and task accuracy. On the other hand, the aim is to determine if the capacity of internal visual, external visual, and kinesthetic imagery, and the temporal congruence between movement execution and imagery varies when we are subjected to acute stress.

It is expected that non-anxious, non-stressed participants who are not induced with acute stress will show better motor performance on the fine motor task and better motor imagery ability and temporal congruence. In contrast, it is expected that participants without anxiety and stress who are induced with acute stress will show poorer motor performance on the fine motor task, and poorer motor imagery ability and temporal congruence.

Publications & conference data

No peer-reviewed publications indexed yet for this trial. Completed trials usually publish results within 12-18 months.