bioRxiv Science⌕ Search
Home/Archive/bioRxiv

bioRxiv · 10.64898/2026.06.03.729955

A transition to a more efficient attentional strategy facilitates motor learning in the presence and absence of movement-evoked experimental pain. A cross-sectional experimental study.

Matthews, D.·Khatibi, A.·Falla, D.
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Pain demands attention and can disrupt task-related goals. Attention allocation is a key cognitive process supporting motor learning and disruption of internal schemas associated with attentional control during motor learning can result in interference in improvements in performance. Movement-contingent pain is an important characteristic of persistent musculoskeletal pain. Despite this, research exploring pain interference with motor learning and attention has exclusively utilised tonic pain paradigms. Understanding the impacts of movement-contingent pain on motor learning and attention may provide important insights into the interaction between pain and motor learning. The aim of this study was to; 1) explore the robustness of a movement-contingent pain paradigm across an extended period of training, 2) explore the impact of movement-contingent pain on improvements in performance and attentional allocation during motor learning. Three groups (healthy non-pain, healthy experimental-pain and persistent pain experimental-pain) completed ten trials of a motor sequence learning task while experiencing a movement-contingent electrical stimulation. Three task performance measures and five gaze indices, previously associated with attentional control, were collected. Results showed that; 1) low frequency electro-cutaneous stimulation could produce a valid and consistent pain experience across a sustained period of training, 2) attentional allocation becomes more efficient across learning, accompanied by improvements in task performance, 3) changes in task performance and attentional measures across training were similar in all groups despite the presence of pain, 4) movement-contingent experimental pain enhanced spatial performance at all time points in healthy participants but was not accompanied by a different pattern of attentional allocation. This study demonstrates that the impact of movement-contingent pain on motor learning is comparable to the impacts of tonic experimental pain and provides interesting insights into patterns of attentional allocation across time but little evidence that these attentional allocations are impacted by the presence of pain or a past history of pain.

Explore related subjects

neurosciencePreprint

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Matthews, D., Khatibi, A., Falla, D.. 2026-06-08. A transition to a more efficient attentional strategy facilitates motor learning in the presence and absence of movement-evoked experimental pain. A cross-sectional experimental study.. https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.06.03.729955

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related preprints

bioRxiv2026

Neurodegeneration-inducing macromolecules exit the brain via nanovascular conduits formed by reticular fibroblasts

Accumulation of proteins such as amyloid beta (Abeta), hyperphosphorylated tau and alpha-synuclein within the brain alters neural information processing and causes neurodegeneration(1-3), but how toxic solutes are cleared from the brain remains highly controversial(4,5). Proposed exit routes include efflux across endothelial cells into the blood(6,7), and movement to the pial surface via vasomotion-induced pumping along spaces within arteriolar smooth muscle(8) or via outflow along the perivascular space of ascending venules promoted by water flux through astrocytes (the glymphatic system(9)). From the pial surface of the brain, drainage may continue to dural lymphatics, along the outer sheaths of exiting cranial nerves and across the cribriform plate(10-14). We now report the presence, in mice and humans, of 2 micron diameter conduits that remove fluorescently labelled tau and Abeta from the brain. These conduits form a spatially-organised mesh within the walls of penetrating arterioles and pial arteries, and around the surface of ascending venules and deep cerebral and pial veins. They course through the pial and arachnoid layers to span the CSF space, wrapping the brain and cranial nerves. They are formed of reticular fibroblasts, which label for VE-cadherin(15) and PDGFRalpha(16), the lymphatic markers(17) podoplanin, VEGFR3 and Prox1, and reticular fibroblast extracellular matrix components collagen I and VI(16,18-20). Parenchymal tau drains from the brain at a similar rate via arteriolar conduits and via conduits around venules, arguing against preferential removal by a glymphatic mechanism. In Alzheimer's disease model mice, Abeta is seen traversing these lymph node-like conduits. Modulation of molecular transfer via this route may accelerate or delay cognitive decline, and slowed transfer from arteriolar to pial-arachnoid conduits may initiate cerebral amyloid angiopathy.

neuroscience↗
bioRxiv2026

Analysis of the influence of gradual changes in matrix sentence similarity on neural envelope tracking

Neural tracking of speech is a well-established phenomenon in neuroscience. However, for speech signals with a fixed structure, significant correlations between speech envelopes and neurophysiological representations occur even for unheard sentences. We exploit a structured speech-in-noise matrix hearing test (Oldenburger Sentence Test, OLSA) to systematically quantify the relationship between acoustic sentence similarity and neural tracking. Simultaneous magnetoencephalography (MEG) and 76-channel electroencephalography (EEG) data, including 16 channels positioned directly around the ears (ear-EEG), were recorded from 21 young adults with normal hearing during the presentation of clean-speech audiobooks and OLSA sentences at six signal-to-noise ratios. A linear decoder trained on audiobooks reconstructed OLSA sentence envelopes. Reconstruction accuracies were compared using a linear mixed model across heard (matched) and unheard (mismatched) sentences of varying acoustic similarity. Significant reconstruction accuracies were achieved across MEG, EEG, and ear-EEG for both matched and mismatched sentences. For mismatched sentences, these accuracies gradually increased with their acoustic similarity to the heard speech data. The high similarity between sentences, which is especially prominent in matrix tests, can cause significant spurious tracking for mismatched stimuli. This effect can reach levels comparable to those of matched sentences and can be mistaken for true neural tracking. Robust neural tracking across modalities further supported the established viability of ear-EEG compared to whole-head systems.

neuroscience↗
bioRxiv2026

Seizures and tauopathy following neurotrauma are mediated by prion protein and metabotropic glutamate receptor 5

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the world's leading causes of death and disability and a major risk factor for dementias. The primary dementia associated with TBI is chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a neurodegenerative disease classified as a tauopathy, in which toxic tau molecules lead to disease pathologies and degeneration. The processes that lead to tauopathy and subsequent dementia after TBI remain unclear. Here, we built upon the finding that seizures after TBI may be a mechanism leading to tauopathy, by dissecting the functions of the metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 - cellular prion protein (mGluR5-PrPC) pathway. We delivered TBI to larval in a blast paradigm, and quantified aggregation of Tau via a genetically-encoded Tau-GFP fusion reporter. Zebrafish larvae lacking prp2 (homolog of mammalian cellular Prion Protein, PrPC) displayed a 168% increase in post-traumatic seizures activity after TBI. An mGluR5 agonist (CHPG) reduced post-traumatic seizures, whereas an mGluR5 antagonist (MPEP) increased post-traumatic seizures. Moreover, agonizing mGluR5 reduced tau aggregation and antagonizing mGluR5 increased tau burden. Larvae seizing from convulsants, rather than TBI, were treated with CHPG/MPEP and provided a similar pattern of outcomes, suggesting seizures may be a factor needed for mGluR5 activity to influence tau aggregation. The PrPC-mGluR5 pathway is proposed as one candidate pathomechanism linking TBI to subsequent seizures and tauopathy, and thus it warrants investigation as a target for prophylactic interventions.

neuroscience↗