CAREER: Paradoxical benefits of distraction for motor memory

驾驶飞机的飞行员和恢复行走能力的中风患者必须学习（或再次学习）相关的运动技能。重要的是，这些运动技能经常在新的情况下使用，在这种情况下，注意力可能会被其他事件或物体分散。例如，在紧急情况下，飞行员必须继续操作飞机，同时与地面当局和其他机组人员保持通信，并评估飞机的状态。同样，恢复行走能力的中风患者必须注意汽车、其他行人和路上的障碍物，以避免碰撞。当一项运动技能是第一次学习时，注意力需求也会有所不同。如果在没有分心的情况下学到的技能在回忆时出现分心时就会退化，反之亦然呢？如何开发运动学习项目来训练运动技能在新环境中的成功转移？在美国国家科学基金会职业奖的支持下，布朗大学的Joo-Hyun Song博士将描述运动学习过程中应对注意力分散的机制，并将制定一个培训计划，以促进在广泛分心的情况下稳健的长期学习。宋博士将在为期10周的暑期研究项目中指导全国和当地选拔的本科生，参与者通过两项计划招募，旨在为来自不同少数民族背景的合格本科生准备医学博士和博士课程（通过本科生研究教育经验增强神经科学多样性蓝图计划和领导力联盟暑期研究早期识别计划）。宋博士还将为来自少数族裔服务机构的弱势学生提供一个长期的全国性辅导项目（从大一结束到毕业）。此外，宋博士还将与布朗大学科学中心的科学教育项目scitoons initiative合作，根据她的研究成果，制作并播出两集多媒体科学剧集，面向K-12学生和普通公众。本研究项目旨在在一个更广泛的理论框架内描述视觉运动技能，其中运动技能是由注意力和记忆调节的。宋博士将研究1)注意力干扰的哪些成分被编码到运动记忆中；2)当分心与运动记忆发生整合时；3)如何开发一个长期的、强大的运动学习计划，在这个计划中，运动记忆可以被训练成适应各种情况的能力。这项工作将为包括认知科学、神经科学和生物医学工程在内的跨学科的注意、运动学习和记忆机制的统一理论框架提供基础。

A pilot operating an aircraft and a stroke victim recovering the ability to walk must learn (or learn again) pertinent motor skills. Importantly, these motor skills are often used in new situations, where attention may be distracted by other events or objects. For example, during an emergency the pilot must continue to operate the aircraft while maintaining communications with ground authorities and other crew members and assessing the state of the aircraft. Similarly, a stroke patient recovering the ability to walk must attend to cars, other pedestrians, and obstacles in the path in order to avoid collisions. Attentional demands may also differ when a motor skill is first learned and when it is performed at a later time. What if skills learned when there is no distraction deteriorate when distractions are present at recall, or vice versa? How might motor learning programs be developed that can train successful transfer of motor skills to novel situations? With the support of an NSF CAREER award, Dr. Joo-Hyun Song at Brown University will characterize mechanisms involved in coping with attentional distractions during motor learning and will develop a training program to promote robust long-term learning despite a wide range of distractions. Dr. Song will mentor nationally and locally selected undergraduates in a 10-week summer research program, with participants recruited through two initiatives designed to prepare qualified undergraduates from diverse minority backgrounds for M.D. and Ph.D. programs (the Blueprint Program for Enhancing Neuroscience Diversity through Undergraduate Research Education Experiences and the Leadership Alliance Summer Research-Early Identification Program). Dr. Song will also provide a longer-term nationwide mentoring program for under-represented students identified from minority-serving institutions (from the end of their freshman year to graduation). In addition, Dr. Song will collaborate with the Sci-Toons initiative, a science education program at Brown University's Science Center, to create and broadcast two multimedia science episodes based on results of her research and aimed at K-12 students and the general public. This research project aims to characterize visuomotor skills within a wider theoretical framework where the motor skill is modulated by attention and memory. Dr. Song will investigate 1) which components of attentional distractors are encoded into motor memory; 2) when the integration between distraction and motor memory occurs; and 3) how to develop a long-term, robust motor learning program in which motor memory can be trained to be adaptable under a variety of situations. The work should provide a basis for a unified theoretical framework of attention, motor learning, and memory mechanisms across disciplines including cognitive science, neuroscience, and biomedical engineering.