Short-Term Motor Learning and Retention During Visually Guided Walking in Persons With Multiple Sclerosis.

BACKGROUND: The ability to adapt, a form of short-term motor learning, and retain this adaptation, is essential for rehabilitation and for day-to-day living. Yet little research is available on this topic in persons with multiple sclerosis (PwMS), particularly in relation to complex walking tasks.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the ability of PwMS to learn and retain a novel relationship between visual input and motor output-or visuomotor map-during visually guided walking.

METHODS: Nineteen PwMS and 17 healthy controls performed a precision walking task while adapting to prism lenses that altered the normal visuomotor map on 1 day, and again after a 1-week delay. The task required individuals to walk and step onto 2 targets without stopping. To quantify motor performance, we determined foot placement error relative to the targets.

RESULTS: PwMS with mild disability and healthy controls attenuated foot placement error over repeated trials when exposed to the novel mapping and demonstrated a similar rate and magnitude of adaptation in the first learning session. Both groups equally retained the adaptation 1 week later, reflected by reduced foot placement error and a faster rate of error reduction in that session.

CONCLUSION: PwMS can learn and retain a novel visuomotor mapping during a precision-based walking task. This suggests that PwMS with mild disability have the capacity for short-term motor learning and retention, indicating that neural plasticity is preserved.