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PubMed2003

Neocortical mechanisms in motor learning.

The ability to learn novel motor skills has fundamental importance for adaptive behavior. Neocortical mechanisms support human motor skill learning, from simple practice to adaptation and arbitrary sensory-motor associations. Behavioral and neural manifestations of motor learning evolve in time and involve multiple structures across the neocortex. Modifications of neural properties, synchrony and synaptic efficacy are all related to the development and maintenance of motor skill.

Animals↗
PubMed2004

Emergence of rhythm during motor learning.

Complex motor skill often consists of a fixed sequence of movements. Recent studies show that a stereotyped temporal pattern or rhythm emerges as we learn to perform a motor sequence. This is because the sequence is reorganized during learning as serial chunks of movements in both a sequence-specific and subject-specific manner. On the basis of human imaging studies we propose that the formation of chunk patterns is controlled by the cerebellum, its posterior and anterior lobes contributing, respectively, to the temporal patterns before and after chunk formation. The motor rhythm can assist the motor networks in the cerebral cortex to control automatic movements within chunks and the cognitive networks to control non-automatic movements between chunks, respectively. In this way, organized motor skill can be performed automatically and flexibly.

Cerebellum↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Impaired motor learning and diffuse axonal damage in motor and visual systems of the rat following traumatic brain injury.

Cognitive-motor functioning or motor skill learning is impaired in humans following traumatic brain injury. A more complete understanding of the mechanisms involved in disorders of motor skill learning is essential for any effective rehabilitation. The specific goals of this study were to examine motor learning disorders, and their relationship to pathological changes in adult rats with mild to moderate closed head injury. Motor learning deficits were determined by comparing the ability to complete a series of complex motor learning tasks with simple motor activity. The extent of neuronal damage was determined using silver impregnation. At all post-injury time points (day 1 to day 14), statistically significant deficits were observed in parallel bar traversing, foot placing, ladder climbing, and rope climbing. Performance improved with time, but never reached control levels. In contrast, no deficits were found in simple motor activity skills tested with beam balance and runway traverse. Histologically, axonal degeneration was widely distributed in several brain areas that relate to motor learning, including the white matter of sensorimotor cortex, corpus callosum, striatum, thalamus and cerebellum. Additionally, severely damaged axons were observed in the primary visual pathway, including the optic chiasm, optic tract, lateral geniculate nuclei, and superior colliculus. These findings suggest that motor learning deficits could be detected in mild or moderate brain injury, and this deficit could be attributed to a diffuse axonal injury distributed both in the motor and the visual systems.

Animals↗
PubMed1989

Functional role of the sensory cortex in learning motor skills in cats.

The functional role of corticocortical input projecting to the motor cortex in learning motor skills was investigated by training 3 cats with and without the projection area. After unilateral removal of areas 1, 2, 2 praeinsularis and a part of 5, the cat was placed in a box and trained to pick up a small piece of food from a beaker in front of the box. Since the beaker and the edge of the box had a space in between, the cat had to develop a new motor skill to being the food back to the box across the space. This skill consisted of combined supination and flexion of the paw to hold the food over the gap. In all 3 cats, the training period necessary for acquisition of the motor skill for the forelimb contralateral to the lesioned brain was significantly longer than the period necessary for the forelimb ipsilateral to the lesioned cortex. Ablation of the remaining projection area after completion of the training did not impair the learned motor skill. The results suggest that the input from the lesioned area to the motor cortex participates in learning motor skills.

Animals↗
PubMed2004

Altered expression of BDNF and its high-affinity receptor TrkB in response to complex motor learning and moderate exercise.

We report that rats learning complex motor skills or exercising moderately show changes in expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and its receptor, TrkB protein, in cerebellum and motor cortex. It is now known that physical activity increases expression of some neurotrophins. We examined the time course of BDNF and TrkB expression after 1, 3, 5, 7 or 14 days in one of three conditions: (1) an "acrobatic" motor skill learning condition (AC), (2) a motor activity condition (moderately paced running on a flat track; MC) and (3) an inactive social-only control (SC) that served as a baseline group. Expression levels of BDNF and TrkB were evaluated by measuring relative optical density of the immunocytochemical reaction product. In cerebellar molecular layer, expression of BDNF correlated significantly with time spent in AC and MC over the first 7 days of training and remained elevated after 14 days of AC but not of MC. Changes in TrkB protein expression in cerebellar molecular layer mirrored those for BDNF during the first 7 days of training, but subsequently its expression subsided to the control level. In motor cortex, a significant increase in BDNF and TrkB protein expression was detected in the upper layers after 14 days in AC. Increased expression of BDNF, but not of TrkB, was observed in upper motor cortical layers after 14 days of MC. These data indicate that complex motor learning and moderate physical activity with little learning produce different effects on the expression pattern of BDNF and its receptor and may have implications for neural plasticity arising from such experiences.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed2001

Analogy learning: a means to implicit motor learning.

Two experiments were conducted to examine the hypothesis that learning by analogy will invoke characteristics of an implicit mode of motor learning. In the first experiment, table tennis novices learned to hit forehand topspin implicitly, explicitly or by analogy. The results showed that the analogy and implicit learning groups accumulated equivalently fewer explicit rules than the explicit learning group during the learning phase. When a concurrent secondary task was added, the explicit learning group suffered from a significantly more serious performance impairment than the analogy and implicit learning groups; no significant differences were seen between the latter two groups. Self-perceived performance was correlated to actual performance in the explicit learning group but not in the analogy or the implicit learning groups. In the second experiment, the performance of an explicit learning group was found to be impaired by both a stress intervention and a thought suppression intervention, whereas the performance of an analogy learning group was not. These characteristics of analogy learning parallel those reported in the implicit learning literature, suggesting that analogy learning may be an effective method for teaching skills implicitly in sport.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Effects of aging and schedules of knowledge of results on motor learning.

Little research has been conducted on aging and the learning of motor skills. In this study, we examined the effects of different schedules of knowledge of results (KR) on the acquisition and retention of a movement timing task by young adults (20-23 years) and older adults (60-82 years). The results indicated that there were differences between young and older adults in the accuracy and consistency of motor performance when KR was provided. Accuracy effects persisted during a retention interval when KR was no longer provided, although there were no differences in variability. There were no interactions of age with any of the KR-related variables. These findings suggest that the ability to process KR, and the effects of KR on motor learning, are similar in young and older adults. These findings are discussed in terms of age-related issues in movement control and learning processes.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Learning motor sequences with and without knowledge of governing rules.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the behavioral and neural effects of rule-based knowledge on motor sequence learning. METHODS: The authors developed a novel 2-dimensional variant of the serial reaction time (SRT) task to test the effect of prior, verbalizable rule knowledge on motor learning behavior. To examine neurophysiological effects, they also performed functional magnetic resonance imaging on a small cohort of subjects while performing the same task. RESULTS: Behavioral data demonstrated that instruction on sequence-governing rules enhanced behavioral performance in both learning magnitudes and rates. The neuroimaging data revealed substantially different, but partially overlapping, learning-related activation patterns with and without prior rule instruction. Direct comparison of these 2 conditions revealed significantly different involvement of bilateral superior and anterior prefrontal cortex (Brodmann areas 8 and 10, respectively), right superior temporal cortex (BA 38/21), and left cerebellum. CONCLUSIONS: These behavioral findings demonstrate an advantage of teaching governing rules prior to 2D-SRT task performance. While these neuroimaging findings remain to be replicated in a larger cohort of subjects, results suggest that substantially different-though partially overlapping-brain regions subserve learning in these 2 rehabilitation-relevant conditions. Thus, appropriate choice of pretraining may benefit, for example, rehabilitation populations, at least in motor skill acquisition that requires sequencing.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Pharmacological suppression of plastic changes in human primary somatosensory cortex after motor learning.

The strict division between motor and somatosensory systems might be less distinct than previously thought. Many brain mapping studies have described changes of somatosensory cortex (S-I) after the execution of a motor task, which supports the idea of a profound interconnectedness in the sensorimotor system. Here we report experiments in which we investigated by means of somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEPs) mapping the reorganizational capacities in primary somatosensory cortex before and after a Hebbian repetitive co-contraction task of the thumb and arm. We investigated the susceptibility of S-I plasticity to the pharmacological modulation of the GABA-neurotransmitter system by application of the GABA(A) agonist lorazepam. We found that repetitive training induced stable motor learning characterized by a significant improvement of performance. The time differences between the onset of contraction of the deltoid muscle and the abductor pollicis brevis were progressively shortened. The process of motor learning was accompanied by plastic changes in the primary somatosensory cortex as indicated by a significant increase in the dipole strength and a significant shift of the median nerve dipole on the hemisphere contralateral to the exercised side. Moreover, the individual shifts of median nerve dipole location were correlated with the individual improvement in motor performance. After administration of lorazepam, motor learning was significantly suppressed. The behavioural effect was accompanied by an abolition of the N20 dipole shift and an unchanged dipole strength. The results imply that motor learning leads to a profound reorganization in S-I which is subject to pharmacological suppression with the GABA agonist lorazepam.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Projection from the sensory to the motor cortex is important in learning motor skills in the monkey.

1. The projection from the somatosensory cortex to the primary motor cortex has been proposed to play an important role in learning novel motor skills. This hypothesis was examined by studying the effects of lesions to the sensory cortex on learning of new motor skills. 2. We used two experimental paradigms to reveal the effects of lesions on learning of new motor skills. One task was to catch a food pellet falling at various velocities. The other task was to catch a food pellet from a rotating level. Both tasks required acquisition of novel motor skills. 3. The training was started after a lesion of the hand area in the somatosensory cortex of one hemisphere. In both tasks, monkeys had severe difficulty in learning the new skills with the hand contralateral to the ablated somatosensory cortex, compared with the hand contralateral to the intact hemisphere. 4. After acquisition of the motor skill in the hand contralateral to intact hemisphere, lesion of the somatosensory cortex hand area did not abolish the learned motor skill. 5. In control experiments, monkeys were trained to pick up a food pellet from a rotating board. This task did not necessitate acquisition of new motor skills, but could be performed by utilizing existing motor skills. Lesion in the somatosensory cortex before or after the training did not affect the execution of this task by either hand. 6. It is concluded that the corticocortical projection from the somatosensory to the motor cortex plays an important role in learning new motor skills, but not in the execution of existing motor skills.

Afferent Pathways↗
PubMed2001

Motor skills and motor learning in Lurcher mutant mice during aging.

Motor learning abilities on the rotorod and motor skills (muscular strength, motor coordination, static and dynamic equilibrium) were investigated in three-, nine-, 15- and 21-month-old Lurcher and control mice. Animals were subjected to motor training on the rotorod before being subjected to motor skills tests. The results showed that control mice exhibited decrease of muscular strength and specific equilibrium impairments in static conditions with age, but were still able to learn the motor task on the rotorod even in old age. These results suggest that, in control mice, efficiency of the reactive mechanisms, which are sustained by the lower transcerebellar loop (cerebello-rubro-olivo-cerebellar loop), decreased with age, while the efficiency of the proactive adjustments, which are sustained by the upper transcerebellar loop (cerebello-thalamo-cortico-ponto-cerebellar loop), did not. In spite of their motor deficits, Lurcher mutants were able to learn the motor task at three months, but exhibited severe motor learning deficits as soon as nine months. Such a deficit seems to be associated with dynamic equilibrium impairments, which also appeared at nine months in these mutants. By two months of age, degeneration of the cerebellar cortex and the olivocerebellar pathway in Lurcher mice has disrupted both lower and upper transcerebellar loops. Disruption of the lower loop could well explain precocious static equilibrium deficits. However, in spite of disruption of the upper loop, motor learning and dynamic equilibrium were preserved in young mutant mice, suggesting that either deep cerebellar nuclei and/or other motor structures involved in proactive mechanisms needed to maintain dynamic equilibrium and to learn motor tasks, such as the striatopallidal system, are sufficient. The fact that, in Lurcher mutant mice, motor learning decreased by the age of nine months suggests that the above-mentioned structures are less efficient, likely due to degeneration resulting from precocious and focused neurodegeneration of the cerebellar cortex. From this behavioral approach of motor skills and motor learning during aging in Lurcher mutant mice, we postulated the differential involvement of two transcerebellar systems in equilibrium maintenance and motor learning. Moreover, in these mutants, we showed that motor learning abilities decreased with age, suggesting that the precocious degeneration of the cerebellar Purkinje cells had long-term effects on motor structures which are not primarily affected. Thus, from these results, Lurcher mutant mice therefore appear to be a good model to study the pathological evolution of progressive neurodegeneration in the central nervous system during aging.

Aging↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Mechanisms of motoric learning.

The basic principles of motoric learning are analyzed in this paper. Arguments are given for the position that instrumental conditioning is the basis for motoric learning, but that the mechanisms of insight as well as the system of foresight in analysis of the result also play a substantial role in it. The hypothesis is advanced, in comparing certain theories of learning, of the possibility of a synthetic approach. Two stages can be distinguished in the process of motoric learning, the formation of notional and coordinational programs. The formation and realization of learned movements which are antagonistic to the initial coordinations takes place under the constant control of the motor cortex, which effects the inhibition of interfering coordinations that develop in the course of learning.

Animals↗
PubMed2002

Effect of levetiracetam on rapid motor learning in humans.

BACKGROUND: The human motor cortex (M1) has a role in motor learning. Antiepileptic drugs that suppress M1 excitability may affect learning, presumably by inhibiting long-term potentiation. Levetiracetam, a new antiepileptic drug with a unique preclinical profile, also suppresses M1 excitability, but in a way that is different from other antiepileptic drugs. The effect of levetiracetam on motor learning has yet to be addressed. OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether levetiracetam alters rapid motor learning in humans. METHODS: We measured pinch force and acceleration and motor excitability before and after 30 minutes of pinch practice at 0.5 Hz in 10 healthy volunteers. Either 3000 mg of levetiracetam or placebo was administered 1 hour before the experiment. RESULTS: After practice, pinch acceleration was significantly increased with placebo, but not with levetiracetam. All other measures showed no significant change. CONCLUSION: Levetiracetam interferes with rapid motor learning; this is consistent with a negative influence on long-term potentiation.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Facilitation of implicit motor learning by weak transcranial direct current stimulation of the primary motor cortex in the human.

Transcranially applied weak direct currents are capable of modulating motor cortical excitability in the human. Anodal stimulation enhances excitability, cathodal stimulation diminishes it. Cortical excitability changes accompany motor learning. Here we show that weak direct currents are capable of improving implicit motor learning in the human. During performance of a serial reaction time task, the primary motor cortex, premotor, or prefrontal cortices were stimulated contralaterally to the performing hand. Anodal stimulation of the primary motor cortex resulted in increased performance, whereas stimulation of the remaining cortices had no effect. We conclude that the primary motor cortex is involved in the acquisition and early consolidation phase of implicit motor learning.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed2002

Effects of hippocampal lesions on patterned motor learning in the rat.

Motor skill learning in rats has been linked to cerebellar function as well as to cortical and striatal influences. The present study evaluated the contribution of the hippocampus to motor learning. Adult male rats received electrolytic lesions designed to selectively destroy the hippocampus; a sham-lesioned group of animals served as a control. The animals with hippocampal lesions acquired a patterned motor learning task as well as sham controls. In contrast, rats with hippocampal lesions were impaired in spatial, but not cued, learning in the Morris water maze. In addition, lesioned rats showed profound impairment in the novel object recognition memory task, when a 1-h delay was used between training and testing. Taken together, these results suggest that the hippocampus is not necessary during acquisition of the motor learning task.

Animals↗
PubMed1985

Purposeful activity in motor learning theory: an event approach to motor skill acquisition.

This paper presents the event approach to motor skill acquisition as a theoretical treatment of the learning and relearning of motor skills; the emphasis is toward rehabilitation of physical dysfunction. Purposeful activity is viewed as a necessary prerequisite for the formation of coordinative structures, which are the bases for skilled movement. Traditional approaches to motor learning, which focus primarily on the actor, are seen as inadequate to accurately describe motor skill acquisition. The event approach treats the actor and the environment as inseparable in the acquisition of skills. Using this approach, I hope to establish a common ground and collaborative relationships between the disciplines of occupational therapy and motor learning.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

The vestibulo-ocular reflex as a model system for motor learning: what is the role of the cerebellum?

Motor systems are under a continuous adaptive process to maintain behavior throughout developmental changes and disease, a process called motor learning. Simple behaviors with easily measurable inputs and outputs are best suited to understand the neuronal signals that contribute to the required motor learning. Considering simple behaviors, the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) allows quantification of its input and motor output and its neural circuitry is among the best documented. The main candidates for plastic change are the cerebellum and its target neurons in the brainstem. This review focuses on recent data regarding the involvement of the cerebellum in VOR motor learning. Learning can be divided into that acutely acquired over a period of hours and that chronically acquired over longer periods. Both acute and chronic learning have three phases named acquisition, consolidation, and retention. The cerebellar role in retention is disputed, but there is a consensus on the need of an intact cerebellum for acquisition. Data from neuronal recording, lesion studies and transgenic mouse experiments is complex but suggests that the signal representation in the cerebellum contains aspects of both motor output and sensory input. The cerebellum apparently uses different mechanisms for acute and chronic learning as well as for increases and decreases in VOR gain. Recent studies also suggest that the signal content in the cerebellum changes following learning and that the mechanisms used for chronic adaptation involve not only changes in a head velocity component but also in the efference copy of an eye movement command signal reaching Purkinje cells. This data leads to a new conceptual framework having implications for developing theories on the role of the cerebellum in motor learning and in the search for plastic elements within the VOR circuitry. For chronic learning we hypothesize that changes in the head velocity information traveling through the circuitry occur in parallel with changes in the integrator pathway and the efference copy pathway. We further propose that these changes are necessary to maintain the broadband characteristics of the learned behavior.

Animals↗