Moderate Aerobic Exercise has an Inconclusive Effect on Fine Motor Control

Abstract

Fine motor control involves the coordination of many different physiological systems to produce precise movements. The central nervous system, peripheral nerves, muscles, and blood vessels all have an active role in determining an individual’s fine motor skills. Acute moderate exercise may stimulate the sympathetic nervous system, which causes skeletal muscle vasodilation and increased cardiac output, allowing more blood to perfuse the muscles. This effect, accompanied by an increase in cortical blood flow, was hypothesized to lead to an increase in fine motor skills, as measured by the ability to perform a standard pegboard assessment. Because there are many factors that may influence fine motor control, we focused on measuring noninvasive cortical blood flow. While the experimental subjects exhibited a change in fine motor skills after exercise as compared to before exercise, control subjects also showed the same improvement, suggesting that the improvement could have been attributed to a learned response. Due to a small sample size and insignificant statistic analysis, we were unable to draw definite conclusions about the effects of moderate exercise on fine motor control. However, there are revisions that could be made to the experimental design to further analyze the effects of moderate aerobic exercise on fine motor control that we believe could lead to the initial hypothesized results.