title: Proprioception: Bilateral inputs first.
abstract: The present study focused on assessing whether the effects of muscle fatigue on joint position sense are dependent upon the unilateral or bilateral nature of proprioceptive inputs. To this aim, a group of young adults performed an active contralateral concurrent ankle matching task in two conditions of support of the reference limb (active vs. passive) and two conditions of fatigue of the indicator limb (no fatigue vs. fatigue). In the absence of muscle fatigue, results failed to evidence significant difference of matching errors between the active and passive conditions of support. However, in the context of muscle fatigue, increased matching errors were observed in active but not passive condition of support. The deleterious effects of muscle fatigue on joint position sense were therefore dependent upon the laterality of the proprioceptive inputs related to muscle contraction. These results suggested that sensory weighting for proprioception gives priority to inputs available bilaterally over the ones available in a single limb only.
authors.affiliation: UJF-Grenoble 1/CNRS/TIMC-IMAG UMR 5525, Grenoble, F-38041, France; Motor Control Laboratory, Research Center for Movement Control and Neuroplasticity, Group Biomedical Sciences, KU Leuven, Leuven 3000, Belgium. Electronic address: Matthieu.Boisgontier@faber.kuleuven.be.
authors.forename: Matthieu P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Boisgontier
authors.forename: Vincent
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Nougier
mesh_terms: D000843:Ankle Joint / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D018763:Muscle Fatigue; D011434:Proprioception; D055815:Young Adult