Neural correlates of strategic control and recalibration during motor learning

学习是一个非凡的过程，它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来丰富我们的生活。在广泛的运动任务中，人类表现出一种刻板的学习功能：错误最初迅速减少，然后缓慢地逐渐减少错误。有人假设，这种学习曲线反映了两个过程的运作，一个是基于战略控制，第二个涉及感觉运动重新校准。根据这种观点，战略控制，如果可用的话，可以在学习的初始阶段迅速减少大的错误。感觉运动重新校准以较慢的时间常数操作，以逐渐减少整个学习过程中的错误。我们的第一个实验将使用视觉适应任务，其中错误是突然或逐渐引入的。前者应该涉及两个过程;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，手内泛化和手之间的转移将被用来确定在这两个学习过程下的新的感觉运动映射的参考框架。第二个系列的实验将通过其在策略控制过程中的作用来研究背外侧前额叶皮层对运动学习的贡献。神经影像学和患者研究将用于探索这个问题。总之，这些实验将有助于确定运动学习的计算过程和神经回路。中风和神经疾病可导致运动能力的严重丧失，严重损害日常功能。国家卫生研究院在其报告《新千年的神经科学》中指出，需要开发新的训练方法来恢复神经残疾者的功能。“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，有助于运动学习。这些过程对于设计康复计划可能很重要，这些康复计划旨在利用保持功能的学习和控制系统。

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.