Influence of Fast and Slow Imagined Muscle Contractions on Muscle Function or Central Nervous System Properties

Kennesaw State University

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Healthy

Treatments: Behavioral: Imagined muscle contractions

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06627491

MI_KA

Details and patient eligibility

About

The goal of this randomized clinical trial is to learn if imagining fast or slow muscle contractions causes different responses for nervous system excitability and muscle function in young, healthy males and females in. The main questions are:

Does imagining fast muscle contractions cause greater nervous system excitability compared to imagining slow muscle contractions?

Does imagining fast muscle contractions increase muscle function compared to imagining slow muscle contractions?

A control condition (rest) will be compared with two intervention conditions: imagining fast and imagining slow conditions, to determine if the fast and slow increase outcomes more than control and if fast has the greatest response.

Participants will:

• Attend 4 laboratory visits
• Perform 50 imagined contractions fast or slow, but with no physical movement
• Physical muscle contractions and non-invasive brain stimulation would be completed before and after each condition.

Full description

Participants will complete 4 laboratory visits in a randomized order, including a familiarization session, a control condition, and 2 conditions involving imaginary muscle contractions. During visits involving imaginary muscle contractions, participants will complete 2 sets of 25 repetitions of either fast (i.e., less than 1 second to peak torque increase torque as fast as possible) or slow (i.e., 3 seconds to peak torque) isometric elbow flexions. Before and after each condition, single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation will be delivered to the primary motor cortex to measure the amplitude of motor-evoked potentials and the duration of the resulting silent periods in the bicep brachii to quantify changes in corticospinal excitability and inhibition, respectively. Rapid maximal voluntary isometric contractions will be used to measure changes in rate of torque development, peak torque, and rate of muscle activation.

Enrollment: 18 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 30 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Be between the ages of 18 - 30
• Healthy (no medical conditions)
• If female, must be taking the same monophasic oral contraceptive for the past 6 months
• Have a body mass index between 18.5 - 30 kg/m2
• Have not performed structured cardiovascular or resistance exercise in past 3 years
• Be right-handed
• Not currently taking stimulants, antipsychotic, anxiety, or depression medications
• Have not suffered an upper extremity musculoskeletal injury within the past year

Exclusion criteria

• If transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is not deemed appropriate depending on your responses to the TMS-specific questionnaire
• Being ambidextrous
• Although rare, you will be excluded if discernable muscle activation responses are not possible via TMS

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Crossover Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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18 participants in 3 patient groups

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

Participants will rest quietly with eyes closed during the control condition.

Fast

Experimental group

Description:

Participants will imagine 2 blocks of 25 fast muscle contractions separated by 30 sec

Treatment:

Behavioral: Imagined muscle contractions

Slow

Experimental group

Description:

Participants will imagine 2 blocks of 25 slow muscle contractions separated by 30 sec

Treatment:

Behavioral: Imagined muscle contractions