Evaluating The Relationship Between Short- and Long-Term Neural Adaptations to Motor Skill Acquisition and Retention

Attempting to understand the neurophysiological underpinnings of learned behaviors and the process of learning itself has yielded interesting findings relating to what happens in the brain and across the nervous system when learning a new skill. The nervous system displays several structural, functional and neurochemical adaptations to motor learning which have been highlighted through the use of neuroimaging techniques such as fMRI, EEG and TMS. This review attempts to outline the neural adaptations governing the acquisition and retention of motor skills, as well as build a timeline for these adaptations following Fitt’s model of motor learning (Fitts and Posner 1967). As one moves across the stages of learning (cognitive, associative, autonomous) the nervous system displays an initial increase in activity and plasticity in the frontal associative regions, motor cortical regions, parietal cortices, sensorimotor striatum, associative striatum, cerebral cortices and nuclei and hippocampus (Doyon et al., 2008), as well as the basal ganglia thalamocortical loops, medial cerebellum, anterior cingulate cortex, inferior frontal gyrus and the visual and parietal cortical areas (Seidler 2011). These neuro-plastic adaptations and activation patterns cement and refine themselves in later stages, indicating a more efficient circuitry and decreased cognitive load when performing the skill (Poldrack et al., 2005). In terms of practical applications of these findings, manipulation of the training principles involved in specific contexts of motor skill learning such as training specificity, duration and intensity, may yield improved neural adaptations and in turn performance on the skill in question

An Exploration of the Contextual Interference Effect on Trained Trick Retention in Companion Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris)

The ability to enact behavior change is pivotal to dog training success. Currently, there are few studies informing the best training practices. This thesis sought to enhance current training practices by applying a human motor skill learning theory, the contextual interference effect (CI), to a trick-training paradigm with companion dogs

Effects of Positive Social Comparative Feedback During Practice on Motor Sequence Learning, Performance Expectancies, and Resting State Connectivity

Positive social comparative feedback indicates to the learner that they are performing better than others. While this type feedback supports motor skill learning in some tasks, the effect of social comparative feedback on motor sequence learning remains unknown. In addition, the OPTIMAL theory predicts that positive social comparative feedback may trigger a dopaminergic response in the brain. However, no studies have utilized neuroimaging techniques to investigate this question. Therefore, the aim of these studies was to determine the effect of positive social comparative feedback on motor sequence learning, performance expectancies, and resting state connectivity of dopaminergic neural pathways. In the first study, forty-eight individuals practiced a joystick-based sequence task and were divided into three feedback groups: CONTROL (no performance feedback), RT ONLY (response time only feedback), and RT+POS (response time plus positive social comparison). Participants attended sessions on two consecutive days: Day 1 for motor skill acquisition and Day 2 for retention testing. Performance related expectancies were measured before and after motor practice and at retention. The RT+POS and CONTROL group showed better overall performance/learning compared with the RT ONLY group. However, the RT+POS showed the highest peak velocities, and the CONTOL group showed the shortest path distances. Overall, the RT+POS and CONTROL showed increases in perceived competence while the RT ONLY group did not. The results of this study suggest that feedback content is an important consideration during motor practice, since feedback without social context (RT ONLY) was detrimental, and since feedback may be leveraged to bias motor practice towards higher movement speeds versus spatial accuracy. In the second study, thirty individuals practiced the same motor task and were divided into two feedback groups: RT ONLY and RT+POS. The study protocol was similar, with magnetic resonance imaging added before and after motor practice. The RT+POS group showed an increase in functional connectivity between the ventral tegmental area and the left nucleus accumbens, brain regions along the mesolimbic dopamine pathway. The RT+POS group showed better overall performance than the RT ONLY group at acquisition. Similar to the first study, the RT+POS showed higher peak velocities than the RT ONLY group. Overall, both groups showed increases in performance expectancies that were not different by group. The results of the brain connectivity analysis support the OPTIMAL theory prediction that positive social comparative feedback may trigger a dopaminergic response in the brain

C-SMB 2.0:Integrating over 25 years of motor sequencing research with the Discrete Sequence Production task

An exhaustive review is reported of over 25 years of research with the Discrete Sequence Production (DSP) task as reported in well over 100 articles. In line with the increasing call for theory development, this culminates into proposing the second version of the Cognitive framework of Sequential Motor Behavior (C-SMB 2.0), which brings together known models from cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and motor learning. This processing framework accounts for the many different behavioral results obtained with the DSP task and unveils important properties of the cognitive system. C-SMB 2.0 assumes that a versatile central processor (CP) develops multimodal, central-symbolic representations of short motor segments by repeatedly storing the elements of these segments in short-term memory (STM). Independently, the repeated processing by modality-specific perceptual and motor processors (PPs and MPs) and by the CP when executing sequences gradually associates successively used representations at each processing level. The high dependency of these representations on active context information allows for the rapid serial activation of the sequence elements as well as for the executive control of tasks as a whole. Speculations are eventually offered as to how the various cognitive processes could plausibly find their neural underpinnings within the intricate networks of the brain.</p