Optimized sensorimotor activation enhances the control of goal-directed aiming mediated by real-time visuomotor transformations

Improving motor abilities may result from sensory-motor stimulations involving repetitive mechanical vibratory applications focused on muscles or tendons. These stimulations activate the proprioceptive pathway, critical for effective motion coordination. Optimized focal muscle vibration (o-fmv) paradigms can enhance motor control of goal-directed movements, potentially influencing visuomotor transformations underlying movement coordination, although with uncertain mechanisms. Here, we asked whether the o-fmv enhances the motor control of goal-directed movements, affecting sensorimotor transformations that rely on real-time or stored visual information processing. For this purpose, we applied the o-fmv to muscles that assist with shoulder movements in healthy individuals to affect their proprioception. Then, we studied the immediate and one-week-after effects on upper limb aiming movements mediated by shoulder motion, planned in vision, and executed with or without online visual information. We found that o-fmv improves mean speed, movement smoothness, and accuracy mainly on movements prepared and executed moment-to-moment with online visual information. The improvement begins immediately and increases one week after o-fmv. Therefore, o-fmv lastingly enhances motor control of goal-directed aimings that rely on real-time visual information processing with a minimal impact on those dependent on stored visual information. Our results indicate that o-fmv improves how the brain processes proprioceptive information to convert a visuospatial plan into motor commands, enhancing motion coordination when executing movements through real-time visual pathways route activation. The implication is that o-fmv may induce long-term effects that influence elaborations in the brain’s visual streams, which control goal-directed action by online visuomotor transformations.