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PubMed2002

Motor learning produces parallel dynamic functional changes during the execution and imagination of sequential foot movements.

The aim of the present positron emission tomography study was to measure the dynamic changes in cerebral activity before and after practice of an explicitly known sequence of foot movements when executed physically and to compare them to those elicited during motor imagery of the same movements. Nine healthy volunteers were scanned while performing both types of movement at an early phase of learning and after a 1-h training period of a sequence of dorsiflexions and plantarflexions with the left foot. These experimental conditions were compared directly, as well as to a perceptual control condition. Changes in regional cerebral blood flow associated with physical execution of the sequence early in the learning process were observed bilaterally in the dorsal premotor cortex and cerebellum, as well as in the left inferior parietal lobule. After training, however, most of these brain regions were no longer significantly activated, suggesting that they are critical for establishing the cognitive strategies and motor routines involved in executing sequential foot movements. By contrast, after practice, an increased level of activity was seen bilaterally in the medial orbitofrontal cortex and striatum, as well as in the left rostral portion of the anterior cingulate and a different region of the inferior parietal lobule, suggesting that these structures play an important role in the development of a long lasting representation of the sequence. Finally, as predicted, a similar pattern of dynamic changes was observed in both phases of learning during the motor imagery conditions. This last finding suggests that the cerebral plasticity occurring during the incremental acquisition of a motor sequence executed physically is reflected by the covert production of this skilled behavior using motor imagery.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

[Locus of the retention benefits of variable practice in the motor learning].

Shea and Kohl (1990) reported that acquisition practice with variations of the criterion task leads to better retention than practice on the criterion task alone. The purpose of this study was to determine the locus of this retention benefits. Experimental task was the speed reproduction task. Eighty undergraduate male students were randomly assigned to eight practice conditions differing in the activities performed during the intertrial intervals. All subjects were administered retention test immediately and twenty-four hours after the practice. Results indicated that the retention benefits demonstrated by subjects provided variable practice was produced by the contextual interference effect not by the formation of motor response schema. Results also suggested that both of reconstruction of action plan and elaborative processing resulted in the retention benefits.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Certain methods of biomechanical description of various postural adjustment patterns during motoric learning in dogs.

Methods for the biomechanical description of spatial displacements of the center of mass of quadruped animal (dog), developed by the authors on the basis of an assessment of the vertical constituents of support pressures, as well as methods for the assessment of the postural adjustment pattern (coefficient of diagonality), are presented in this paper. The results are presented of an investigation of the role of the motor cortex in the accomplishment of the postural adjustment pattern of dogs, reorganized during learning, in the performance of an instrumental movement.

Animals↗
PubMed2005

Motor learning of hands with auditory cue in patients with Parkinson's disease.

In the present research, changes in motor cortex function were observed in relation to repetitive, voluntary thumb movement (training) in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and normal control subjects. Changes in the direction of thumb movement due to motor evoked potential (MEP) by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), after motor training with and without rhythmic sound, were measured using a strain gauge for 12 patients with PD and 9 normal control subjects. PD patients who experienced the freezing phenomena showed poor change in direction of TMS-induced movement after self-paced movement; however, marked change in direction of TMS-induced movement was observed after training with auditory cue. PD patients who had not experienced the freezing phenomena showed positive effects with the auditory cue, producing similar results as the normal control subjects. Two routes for voluntary movement are available in the nervous system. The decreased function of basal ganglia due to PD impaired the route from the basal ganglia to the supplementary motor cortex. These data suggest that the route from sensory input to cerebellum to premotor cortex could compensate for the decreased function of the route via the basal ganglia to the premotor cortex. Once change in the motor cortex occurred, such change persisted even after the interruption of training. These phenomena suggest that motor memory can be stored in the motor cortex.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1992

Impaired non-motor learning and error detection associated with cerebellar damage. A single case study.

A previously conducted positron emission tomography (PET) study of normal humans suggested that the cerebellum makes important non-motor contributions to language processing. Beginning with the task which produced right cerebellar PET activation, we studied a 49-yr-old male (RC1) with right cerebellar damage on a variety of tasks involving complex non-motor processing. Whereas RC1's performance on standard tests of memory, intelligence, 'frontal function' and language skills was excellent, he had profound deficits in two areas: (1) practice-related learning; (2) detection of errors. Considered in relation to cerebellar contributions to motor tasks, the results suggest some functions performed by the cerebellum may be generalized beyond a purely motor domain.

Cerebellar Diseases↗
PubMed1997

Localized changes in immediate-early gene regulation during sensory and motor learning in zebra finches.

A complex neural system controls birdsong learning, but its organization is not understood, nor is it known why learning only occurs during a critical period in adolescence. Here, we analyzed developmental regulation in zebra finches of zenk, an immediate-early gene (IEG) implicated in memory consolidation. Basal expression was elevated within auditory telencephalon (specifically, within the caudomedial neostriatum [NCM]) during song acquisition. Expression could be further induced by song playbacks 30 days after hatching but not at 20 days nor in juveniles reared in severe isolation. Singing itself induced zenk in song production nuclei, including Area X, even in adults. Within a compartment of the robust nucleus of the archistriatum (RA), however, this response dwindled as singing matured. These results suggest that the onset of sensory memory storage may be regulated in part at NCM, and motor plasticity may be regulated at RA.

Aging↗
PubMed2006

Complex spatio-temporal dynamics of fMRI BOLD: A study of motor learning.

Many studies have investigated the temporal properties of BOLD signal responses to task performance in regions of interest, often noting significant departures from the conventionally modelled response shape, and significant variation between regions. However, these investigations are rarely extended across the whole brain nor incorporated into the routine analysis of fMRI studies. As a result, little is known about the range of response shapes generated in the brain by common paradigms. The present study finds such temporal dynamics can be complex. We made a detailed investigation of BOLD signal responses across the whole brain during a two minute motor-sequence task, and tracked changes due to learning. The multi-component OSORU (Onset, Sustained, Offset, Ramp, Undershoot) linear model, developed by Harms and Melcher (J.Neurophysiology, 2003), was extended to characterise responses. In many regions, signal transients persisted for over thirty seconds, with large signal spikes at onset often followed by a dip in signal below the final sustained level of activation. Training altered certain features of the response shape, suggesting that different features of the response may reflect different aspects of neuro-vascular dynamics. Unmodelled, this may give rise to inconsistent results across paradigms of varying task durations. Few of the observed effects have been thoroughly addressed in physiological models of the BOLD response. The complex, extended dynamics generated by this simple, often employed task, suggests characterisation and modelling of temporal aspects of BOLD responses needs to be carried out routinely, informing experimental design and analysis, and physiological modelling.

Brain↗
PubMed1978

Social facilitation during the initial stage of motor learning: a re-examination of Martens' audience study.

This study partially replicated Martens' (1969a) social-facilitation study of motor behavior. His very robust performance findings provided impressive confirmation for Zajonc's hypothesis, and his arousal findings have since been used as evidence for a nonlearned-drive basis for social facilitation. The present study also extended Martens' investigation by examining the separate and combined effects of an audience and videotape camera. The effects due to the presence of the audience and camera were not additive; instead, the audience detrimentally affected subjects' performance consistency and the camera resulted in more trials with errors greater than 30 msec after the performance criteria had been attained. Martens' most robust findings for constant error were not replicated, nor were some of his physiological arousal findings. His pattern of constant error results over all trials is atypical of known learning strategies that subjects use to reduce error over successive trials. Overall, audience effects accounted for only a very small portion of the variance.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1999

Association of abnormal cerebellar activation with motor learning difficulties in dyslexic adults.

BACKGROUND: In addition to their impairments in literacy-related skills, dyslexic children show characteristic difficulties in phonological skill, motor skill, and balance. There is behavioural and biochemical evidence that these difficulties may be attributable to mild cerebellar dysfunction. We wanted to find out whether there was abnormal brain activation when dyslexic adults undertook tasks known normally to involve cerebellar activation. METHODS: Brain activation was monitored by positron emission tomography in matched groups of six dyslexic adults and six control adults as they carried out either a prelearned sequence or learned a novel sequence of finger movements. FINDINGS: Brain activation was significantly lower (p<0.01) for the dyslexic adults than for the controls in the right cerebellar cortex and the left cingulate gyrus when executing the prelearned sequence, and in the right cerebellar cortex when learning the new sequence. INTERPRETATION: The results provided direct evidence that, for this group of dyslexic adults, the behavioural signs of cerebellar abnormality reflect underlying abnormalities in cerebellar activation.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

Treatment with amantadine potentiated motor learning in a patient with traumatic brain injury of 15 years' duration.

This study sought to determine whether pharmacotherapy with amantadine potentiates motor recovery in an 18-year-old man with traumatic brain injury (TBI) of 15 years' duration. This uncontrolled single-case multiple-baseline design allowed preliminary evaluation of amantadine within the context of standard data-collection procedures on the TBI unit. Measurements tracked speed of wheelchair propulsion, wheelchair transfer, donning shirt, and inserting pegs into holes. Data were collected during a 3-week practice period, followed by a 6-week period of practice plus daily treatment with amantadine. The rate at which performance improved was significantly increased with drug treatment in the wheelchair transfer task. There was a statistically insignificant trend toward improvement in donning shirt. Amantadine did not appear to potentiate recovery in the wheelchair propulsion or peg placement tasks. The results suggest that amantadine facilitates some measures of motor recovery in chronic brain injury. Further trials are warranted to investigate this issue.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2000

Practice as an intervention to improve speeded motor performance and motor learning in Parkinson's disease.

Individuals with Parkinson's disease have difficulty initiating and performing complex, sequential movements. Practice generally leads to faster initiation and execution of movements in healthy adults, however, whether practice similarly improves motor performance in patients with Parkinson's disease remains controversial. To assess the effects of practice on motor performance, patients with Parkinson's disease and control subjects practiced two, rapid arm-reaching tasks with different levels of movement complexity for 120 trials each over 2 days. Response programming was studied by analyzing the overall reaction time latency of each movement and its fractionated sub-components, premotor and motor time. Practice effects were investigated by comparing pretest performance to immediate and delayed retention test performances (10-min and 48-h rest intervals, respectively). Both patients with Parkinson's disease and control subjects improved speeded performance of sequential targeting tasks by practice and retained the improvement across both retention test intervals. Finding a learning effect for persons with Parkinson's disease supports practice as an effective rehabilitation strategy to improve motor performance of specific tasks for patients with Parkinson's disease.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2003

Computational approaches to motor learning by imitation.

Movement imitation requires a complex set of mechanisms that map an observed movement of a teacher onto one's own movement apparatus. Relevant problems include movement recognition, pose estimation, pose tracking, body correspondence, coordinate transformation from external to egocentric space, matching of observed against previously learned movement, resolution of redundant degrees-of-freedom that are unconstrained by the observation, suitable movement representations for imitation, modularization of motor control, etc. All of these topics by themselves are active research problems in computational and neurobiological sciences, such that their combination into a complete imitation system remains a daunting undertaking-indeed, one could argue that we need to understand the complete perception-action loop. As a strategy to untangle the complexity of imitation, this paper will examine imitation purely from a computational point of view, i.e. we will review statistical and mathematical approaches that have been suggested for tackling parts of the imitation problem, and discuss their merits, disadvantages and underlying principles. Given the focus on action recognition of other contributions in this special issue, this paper will primarily emphasize the motor side of imitation, assuming that a perceptual system has already identified important features of a demonstrated movement and created their corresponding spatial information. Based on the formalization of motor control in terms of control policies and their associated performance criteria, useful taxonomies of imitation learning can be generated that clarify different approaches and future research directions.

Humans↗
PubMed2001

Learning motor control in the upright position: a mechanical engineering approach.

Motor control problems that result from damage to the central nervous system can make it difficult to learn functional activities. Although several therapeutic approaches attempt to address such problems there is little evidence of their efficacy. Targeted Training is a new approach, based on a biomechanical analysis of the problem, which usually relies on specifically designed equipment. This paper describes the underlying theory, the development of functional specifications, the translation of these specifications into an engineering design and the clinical results of applying the equipment. The promotion of head and trunk control provides an example of the process.

Arm↗
PubMed1977

The role of motor learning and cage size in the early enrichment effect in mice.

Three experiments with C57BL/10J mice examined the possible roles of cage size and simple motor practice as factors responsible for producing improved performance of animals reared in enriched environments. Neither factor was found sufficient to improve subsequent performance in a food-seeking task. Mice reared in flat environments containing a variety of objects, but designed to prevent any climbing practice, out-performed nonenriched animals on a task requiring extensive climbing activity.

Animals↗