Unskilled finger key pressing and brain coherence

Abstract

To press a computer key by an unskilled finger is sometimes an adaptive way to successfully access computer for the persons with quadriplegia. The efficiency of the unskilled site during the learning process should be addressed. Currently, we also want to know how the brain works in this unskilled situation during the learning process. Therefore, this combined motor behavioral and brain electrophysiological study was conducted. Since it was not easy to invite the persons with quadriplegia to participate electrophysiological studies, we invited eight typical college students to participate our study. Each of them tried to press the left, middle, and right keys for 200 times by their 2nd, 3rd and 4th fingers respectively in a randomized order. The event-related coherence of the EEG was calculated to find out the functional connection among brain areas under unskilled (4th) and skilled (2nd) conditions. The result suggested that the alpha band synchronization between C3 and C4 electrodes under the unskilled condition was weaker than that under the skilled condition. It is likely that the performance of an unskilled finger was correlated to the weaker brain coherence. The brain might need some time to establish connections among different regions in the cortex during the learning process especially when using the unskilled control site. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.