Could fatigue be used as a paradoxical intervention to improve motor learning after stroke?

In animal experiments, motor learning and synaptic plasticity in the cortex are enhanced by interventions that reduce the effectiveness of GABAergic intracortical inhibition. Previous work has shown that GABAergic inhibition in human motor cortex is reduced by fatigue of muscles innervated from the regions being tested. Interestingly, similar effects on GABA occur even after fatigue of distant muscles in different limbs or the opposite side of the body. In the final set of experiments on healthy individuals we show that fatigue can improve movement speed without affecting accuracy in a typewriting task. We speculate that muscle fatigue, perhaps induced in distant muscles, might be a useful way to enhance motor learning during neurorehabilitation.