Brain and spinal cord plasticity mechanisms mediating the fast learning phase of a motor memory trace

在我们的一生中，我们学习新的动作序列(例如，弹钢琴、打字、挥动高尔夫球)，以便在经过广泛的练习后，这些动作可以快速而自动地进行。随着神经成像技术的出现，人们越来越多地描述了人类大脑的哪些区域在全球范围内对学习这种运动技能做出了贡献。这种技术可以在学习过程中绘制出体内的大脑活动图。尽管如此，目前的研究还没有提供这些大脑结构的活动是如何通过运动序列练习动态塑造的准确图景，特别是在学习的第一步，在此期间创造记忆痕迹。因此，该研究计划的主要目标是在健康人类中使用创新的、最先进的神经成像技术，以更好地理解这一关键的学习初始阶段如何动态地塑造和改变许多已知参与运动技能获得，特别是运动序列学习(MSL)的大脑结构的功能。此外，尽管许多研究已经研究了与这种记忆形式相关的大脑可塑性，但这一领域的研究完全忽略了位于大脑和运动效应器(例如，手的肌肉)之间的中枢神经系统的一个重要部分：脊椎中可以找到的脊髓。后者内的功能活动最近被证明受到各种运动任务的调节，但还没有研究人员关注脊髓在运动序列学习中的作用。因此，我们建议通过多模式电生理成像方法来解决这个问题。我希望，这项工作将第一次增加我们关于MSL中脑和脊髓相互作用的知识基础，并将对需要康复的患者具有重大的临床应用。

Throughout our life, we learn new sequences of movements (e.g., playing the piano, typing, swinging a golf ball) so that these can be performed in a fast and automatic fashion after extensive practice. The advent of neuroimaging techniques that allow mapping brain activity in vivo during learning have led to a growing description of which human brain regions globally contribute to learning such motor skills. Nonetheless, current research does not provide yet a precise picture of how the activity of these brain structures are dynamically shaped by motor sequence practice, especially in the first step of learning during which the memory trace is created. The main objectives of this research program are thus to employ innovative, state of the art neuroimaging techniques in healthy humans to better comprehend how this crucial initial phase of learning dynamically shapes and alters the functioning of the numerous brain structures known to be engaged in motor skill acquisition, and in motor sequence learning (MSL) in particular. Furthermore, although a plethora of studies have already investigated the brain plasticity related to this form of memory, this field of research has completely neglected an important part of the central nervous system which lies between the brain and the motor effectors (e.g., muscles of the hand): the spinal cord that can be found within the vertebras. Functional activity within the latter has recently been shown to be modulated by a variety of motor tasks, but no researcher has yet looked at the role of the spinal cord in motor sequence learning. Through a multimodal electrophysiological-imaging approach, we thus propose to address this question. I expect that, for the first time, this work will increase our knowledge base on the interaction between brain and spinal cord in MSL, and that it will have major clinical applications for patients requesting rehabilitation.