Bimanual coordination and brain electrophysiology in children with Developmental Coordination Disorder

• Main Authors: Hsin Yu Wu, 吳欣瑜
• Other Authors: L.F. Meng
• Format: Others
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/94990410599347959087

碩士 === 長庚大學 === 臨床行為科學研究所 === 96 === Abstract This study investigates the relationship of bimanual coordination difficulties in DCD children with movement-related cortical potentials (MRCPs) and cortical coherence during the preparation, execution and feedback phase respectively. Eighteen children (9 DCD and 9 Controls) with ages ranged from 8 to 12 years participated in the study. Children were required to perform unimanual tapping with right and left conditions and bimanual tapping with antiphase and inphase condition respectively, while a 32-channel EEG was recorded including 4 channels used to record EMG. DCD children did not show any difference in coherence among paired electrode-connections, as compared to controls. The major differences occurred on the components of MRCPs and only in the execution phase. While comparing with controls, the DCDs had significantly larger mortor cortex potential (MCP) and re-afferent potential (RAP) amplitudes at Pz in the antiphase condition and had larger RAP at Pz, C3 and C 4 in the inphase condition. The evidence of this study suggests that DCDs display brain activity that is different from controls, as the Pz, C3, C4 seems to be activated more to compensate for inefficient cortical operation. This compensation makes DCDs perform not worse than the controls during the bimanual inphase tapping task. However, even the Pz activated stronger, the DCDs still could not compete with the controls while performing the bimanual antiphase tapping task. In conclusion, the MRCPs demonstrated in the execution phase during bimanual movements are critical and meaningful while substantiating the coordination difficulties in children with DCD.