Neural correlates of strategic control and recalibration during motor learning

描述(申请人提供)：学习是一个非凡的过程，通过让我们快速获得新技能，与新工具和环境互动，并保持对这些经历的记忆，丰富我们的生活。在广泛的运动任务中，人类表现出一种刻板印象的学习功能：一开始错误迅速减少，随后错误逐渐减少。有人假设，这种学习曲线反映了两个过程的运作，一个基于战略控制，另一个涉及感觉运动重新校准。根据这一观点，战略控制在可行的情况下，可以迅速减少学习初期的大错误。感应器电机重新校准以较慢的时间常数运行，以在整个学习过程中逐渐减少错误。我们的第一个实验将使用视觉运动适应任务，在该任务中，错误要么是突然引入的，要么是逐渐引入的。前者应该同时参与两个过程；对于后者，学习将限于感觉运动重新校准过程。使用基于模型的方法，手内概括和手间转移将被用来识别在这两个学习过程中新的感觉运动映射所依据的参照系。第二个系列实验将考察背外侧前额叶皮质通过其在战略控制过程中的作用对运动学习的贡献。神经成像和患者研究将被用来探索这个问题。总而言之，这些实验将有助于确定作为运动学习基础的计算过程和神经回路。中风和神经疾病会导致严重的运动能力丧失，严重损害日常功能。美国国立卫生研究院在其题为《新千年的神经科学》的报告中指出，有必要开发新的训练方法来恢复神经学残障人士的功能。这个项目旨在研究两个不同的过程，依赖于不同的神经回路，如何有助于运动学习。这些过程对于设计康复项目可能很重要，这些项目是为开发仍在发挥作用的学习和控制系统而量身定做的。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Learning is a remarkable process that enriches our lives by allowing us to rapidly acquire new skills, interact with novel tools and environments, and maintain memories of those experiences. Across a broad range of motor tasks, humans show a stereotypical learning function: an initial rapid decrease in errors followed by a slower, gradual reduction in error. It has been hypothesized that this learning curve reflects the operation of two processes, one based on strategic control and a second involving sensorimotor recalibration. By this view, strategic control, when available, quickly reduces large errors during the initial phase of learning. The sensorimotor recalibration operates with a slower time constant to gradually reduce errors throughout learning. Our first experiment will use a visuomotor adaptation task in which errors are either introduced abruptly or gradually. The former should engage both processes; for the latter, learning will be restricted to the sensorimotor recalibration process. Using a model-based approach, within-hand generalization and between-hand transfer will be used to identify the reference frame underlying the new sensorimotor mapping under these two processes of learning. A second series of experiments will examine the contribution of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to motor learning through its role in the strategic control process. Neuroimaging and patient research will be used to explore this question. Taken together, the experiments will aid in determining both the computational processes and neural circuits underlying motor learning. Stroke and neural disease can lead to a profound loss of motor ability, significantly impairing daily function. The N.I.H. identified the need to develop novel training methods to restore function in neurologically disabled individuals in its report "Neuroscience in the New Millennium." This project aims at examining how two different processes, reliant on distinct neural circuits, contribute to motor learning. These processes may be important for designing rehabilitation programs that are tailored to exploit learning and control systems that remain functional.