title: Brain plasticity related to the consolidation of motor sequence learning and motor adaptation.
abstract: This study aimed to investigate, through functional MRI (fMRI), the neuronal substrates associated with the consolidation process of two motor skills: motor sequence learning (MSL) and motor adaptation (MA). Four groups of young healthy individuals were assigned to either (i) a night/sleep condition, in which they were scanned while practicing a finger sequence learning task or an eight-target adaptation pointing task in the evening (test) and were scanned again 12 h later in the morning (retest) or (ii) a day/awake condition, in which they were scanned on the MSL or the MA tasks in the morning and were rescanned 12 h later in the evening. As expected and consistent with the behavioral results, the functional data revealed increased test-retest changes of activity in the striatum for the night/sleep group compared with the day/awake group in the MSL task. By contrast, the results of the MA task did not show any difference in test-retest activity between the night/sleep and day/awake groups. When the two MA task groups were combined, however, increased test-retest activity was found in lobule VI of the cerebellar cortex. Together, these findings highlight the presence of both functional and structural dissociations reflecting the off-line consolidation processes of MSL and MA. They suggest that MSL consolidation is sleep dependent and reflected by a differential increase of neural activity within the corticostriatal system, whereas MA consolidation necessitates either a period of daytime or sleep and is associated with increased neuronal activity within the corticocerebellar system.
authors.affiliation: Functional Neuroimaging Unit, Centre de Recherche de l'Institut Gériatrique, Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada H3W 1W5.
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Debas
authors.forename: Julie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Carrier
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Orban
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Barakat
authors.forename: Ovidiu
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Lungu
authors.forename: Gilles
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Vandewalle
authors.forename: Abdallah
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hadj Tahar
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bellec
authors.forename: Avi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Karni
authors.forename: Leslie G
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Ungerleider
authors.forename: Habib
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Benali
authors.forename: Julien
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Doyon
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological / Q000502:physiology*; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology*; D009048:Motor Skills / Q000502:physiology*; D009473:Neuronal Plasticity / Q000502:physiology*; D012890:Sleep / Q000502:physiology; D014851:Wakefulness / Q000502:physiology