ArticleFrontiers in aging neuroscience2014
Motor Variability during Sustained Contractions Increases with Cognitive Demand in Older Adults.
Article in Frontiers in aging neuroscience, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 36 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
36 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 60 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of Combining Occupationally Relevant Physical and Cognitive Tasks. A Systematic Review.Annals of work exposures and health · 2023Pooled it
- Effects of dual-task demands on the complexity and task performance of submaximal isometric handgrip force control.European journal of applied physiology · 2020Trial
- Age-related alterations in trunk extensor force control during isometric and isokinetic contractions.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Motor performance and aging in males and females.Journal of electromyography and kinesiology : official journal of the International Society of Electrophysiological Kinesiology · 2025Review
- Heavy mental task has no effect on sex differences in muscle fatigability during moderate-intensity isometric contraction.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Age and self-selected walking speed impact the generalization of locomotor memories across contexts.Journal of neurophysiology · 2025Article
- Adding a sustained attention task to a physically demanding cycling exercise exacerbates neuromuscular fatigue and impairs cognitive performance in both normoxia and hypoxia.European journal of applied physiology · 2024Article
- Time constraint and error corrections contribute to the increase of hand postural tremor during mental calculation.Heliyon · 2024Article
- Influence of visual feedback and cognitive challenge on the age-related changes in force steadiness.Experimental brain research · 2024Article
- Prediction of 1-year change in knee extension strength by neuromuscular properties in older adults.GeroScience · 2024Article
- Cognitive challenge as a probe to expose sex- and age-related differences during static contractions.Frontiers in physiology · 2023Review
- Mental calculation increases physiological postural tremor, but does not influence physiological goal-directed kinetic tremor.European journal of applied physiology · 2022Article
- Effect of Mental Task on Sex Differences in Muscle Fatigability: A Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Review
- Aging and skeletal muscle force control: Current perspectives and future directions.Scandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports · 2022Review
- Alterations in Muscle Force Control With Aging: Is There a Modulatory Effect of Lifelong Physical Activity?Frontiers in sports and active living · 2022Article
- Tremor, finger and hand dexterity and force steadiness, do not change after mental fatigue in healthy humans.PloS one · 2022Article
- Cognitive and Motor Perseveration Are Associated in Older Adults.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2021Article
- A Methodological Framework to Capture Neuromuscular Fatigue Mechanisms Under Stress.Frontiers in neuroergonomics · 2021Review
- Dual tasking impairments are associated with striatal pathology in Huntington's disease.Annals of clinical and translational neurology · 2020Article
- Force Control and Motor Unit Firing Behavior Following Mental Fatigue in Young Female and Male Adults.Frontiers in integrative neuroscience · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
To expose cortical involvement in age-related changes in motor performance, we compared steadiness (force fluctuations) and fatigability of submaximal isometric contractions with the ankle dorsiflexor muscles in older and young adults and with varying levels of cognitive demand imposed. Sixteen young (20.4 ± 2.1 year: 8 men, 9 women) and 17 older adults (68.8 ± 4.4 years: 9 men, 8 women) attended three sessions and performed a 40 s isometric contraction at 5% maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) force followed by an isometric contraction at 30% MVC until task failure. The cognitive demand required during the submaximal contractions in each session differed as follows: (1) high-cognitive demand session where difficult mental math was imposed (counting backward by 13 from a 4-digit number); (2) low-cognitive demand session which involved simple mental math (counting backward by 1); and (3) control session with no mental math. Anxiety was elevated during the high-cognitive demand session compared with other sessions for both age groups but more so for the older adults than young adults (p < 0.05). Older adults had larger force fluctuations than young adults during: (1) the 5% MVC task as cognitive demand increased (p = 0.007), and (2) the fatiguing contraction for all sessions (p = 0.002). Time to task failure did not differ between sessions or age groups (p > 0.05), but the variability between sessions (standard deviation of three sessions) was greater for older adults than young (2.02 ± 1.05 vs. 1.25 ± 0.51 min, p < 0.05). Thus, variability in lower limb motor performance for low- and moderate-force isometric tasks increased with age and was exacerbated when cognitive demand was imposed, and may be related to modulation of synergist and antagonist muscles and an altered neural strategy with age originating from central sources. These data have significant implications for cognitively demanding low-force motor tasks that are relevant to functional and ergonomic in an aging workforce.
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Registered trials
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