Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms of Motor Skill Learning

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The long-term memory is responsible for permanently accumulating or storing information. In particular, it stores what can be recalled about how to do activities that include motor skills. In the process of memorizing a specific skill, such as writing, riding a bike or driving a car, there is an initial stage of rapid increment in performance, which is followed by slow increment as performance reaches asymptotic levels. Indeed, after extensive practice the skill becomes automatic or habitual. This is an important facet because it frees our mind for other tasks that require attention. For example, stopping the car when traffic lights change from yellow to red. My laboratory is interested in understanding how different regions of the brain encode and harmonized the information necessary for motor skill optimization. Because mice also develop motor skills, we could use them as a fast and inexpensive model to study what is going on in the brain during the learning of a precise motor skill. We have recently been successful at discovering brain molecules that are adapting their activities following the learning of a new motor skill in mice. However, whether these molecules are responsible for the long-term memory requested to preserve a motor skill is uncertain. This NSERC grant proposes to investigate whether these newly discovered molecules play a role in the memory processes of motor skill learning. In addition, two creative aspects of long-term memory functions, namely the epigenetic and synaptogenesis, have been underscore in another memory type, the cognition. This memory refers to knowledge, attention, judgment, reasoning, problem solving, decision making, etc. We would like to verify whether these two aspects are also accountable for the long-term memory associated with motor skill learning. Understanding the relationship between molecular processes and adaptive behaviour is an important but daunting goal of neuroscience research. Our fundamental research will establish a heuristic model of these molecular elements interactions, organization and functions and will lead to a global view of their role in the control and learning of motor behaviours, and basal ganglia neurophysiology in general.