Motor Control and Adaptation

Control of tongue movements by the Purkinje cells of the cerebellum

This study investigates how Purkinje cells in the cerebellum control tongue movements in marmosets by suppressing their activity during specific phases of movement.

Developmental timecourse of aptitude for motor skill learning in mouse

This study examines the developmental trajectory of motor learning in mice, finding peak plasticity between P30-P60 and a shift from hopping to walking gait.

Predictive posture stabilization before contact with moving objects: equivalence of smooth pursuit tracking and peripheral vision

The paper shows that peripheral vision and smooth pursuit eye movements equally enable anticipatory postural adjustments before contact with moving objects.

High or Low Expectations: Expected intensity of action outcome is embedded in action ‎kinetics

The paper shows that expected intensity of a sensory outcome affects the force applied during an action, with lower expected intensity leading to higher applied force.

Inter-individual variability in motor learning due to differences in effective learning rates between generalist and specialist memory stores

The paper explains interindividual differences in motor learning by proposing a computational model with generalist and specialist memory modules that adapt based on training schedules.

Actions obey Weber's law when precision is evaluated at goal attainment

The paper tests Weber's law in a two-finger pointing task and finds that the standard deviation of inter-finger separation increases with target distance, supporting Weber's law in action.

Force Reserve Predicts Compensation in Reaching Movement with Induced Shoulder Strength Deficit

The paper shows that a 40% shoulder force reserve predicts compensatory trunk movements during reaching with shoulder strength deficits, outperforming traditional control models.

Initial and corrective submovement encoding differences within primary motor cortex during precision reaching

The paper examines neural encoding differences between initial and corrective submovements during precision reaching tasks in rhesus macaques, finding distinct directional and modulation patterns.

Age-dependent predictors of effective reinforcement motor learning across childhood

This study shows that reinforcement motor learning improves with age in children, with younger children showing limited learning due to immature spatial processing and probabilistic reasoning, which can be improved by adjusting task demands.

Identification of whole-body reaching movement phenotypes in young and older active adults: an unsupervised machine learning approach

This study uses unsupervised machine learning to identify age-independent motor control patterns in whole-body reaching movements of young and older adults.

Cerebellar output neurons impair non-motor behaviors by altering development of extracerebellar connectivity

This study shows that ablating cerebellar output neurons has less impact on behavior than genetic mutations in these neurons, which cause additional deficits in learning and memory.

Motor training improves impaired cortico-cerebellar connectivity in cerebellar ataxia

This study shows that motor training improves cortico-cerebellar connectivity in cerebellar ataxia patients, with specific effects depending on the type of feedback used during training.

Differential Aging Effects on Implicit and Explicit Sensorimotor Learning

This study investigates how aging affects explicit and implicit sensorimotor learning through meta-analysis and controlled experiments, finding dissociated impairments and enhancements in these processes.

Load-dependent and load-independent effects on longitudinal motor training in human continuous hand movements

This study investigates how task load affects motor learning through longitudinal fNIRS analysis, finding load-independent control strategies and load-dependent cortical activation changes.

Comparing the representation of a simple visual stimulus across the cerebellar network

This study investigates how sensory representations of a visual stimulus vary across granule cells and inferior olive neurons in larval zebrafish and how Purkinje cells integrate these signals.

The frontal cortex adjusts striatal integrator dynamics for flexible motor timing

The paper investigates the roles of the frontal cortex and striatum in motor timing by using perturbation experiments in mice, showing that the striatum integrates cortical input to regulate timing.

Layer Va neurons, as major presynaptic partners of corticospinal neurons, play critical roles in skilled movements

The paper identifies layer Va neurons as major presynaptic partners of corticospinal neurons and shows their critical role in skilled movements.

Motor adaptation is reduced by symbolic compared to sensory feedback

This study compares how symbolic and sensory feedback affect motor adaptation, finding that symbolic feedback leads to slower and more explicit learning.

Metabolic mode estimated by breathing reflects long-term motor memory

The paper shows that respiratory exchange ratio (RER) correlates with long-term motor memory retention and that glucose intake improves 24-hour retention.

Independent Influences of Movement Distance and Visual Distance on Fitts' Law

The paper decouples movement distance and visual distance in Fitts' Law, showing both influence movement times and that their weighting depends on sensory context.

Robustness and adaptability of sensorimotor skills in expert piano performance

This study compares how expert pianists and non-musicians adapt to auditory perturbations during piano performance, finding differences in motor responses and neural correlates.

Sensation and expectation are embedded in mouse motor cortical activity

This study shows that mouse motor cortical neurons encode sensation and are influenced by expectation, with changes in single-cell and population responses during predictable and unexpected acoustic outcomes of movement.

Open-Source Platform for Kinematic Analysis of Mouse Forelimb Movement

The paper introduces an open-source platform and software for analyzing mouse forelimb movement during a reach-to-grasp task, including hardware design, training protocols, and video analysis tools.

A prefrontal motor circuit initiates persistent movement

The paper identifies a neural mechanism in the dorsal mPFC motor cortex that initiates persistent movement by selectively encoding contextual information.

Identification and organization of a postural anti-gravity module in the cerebellar vermis

The paper identifies a cerebellar module in the vermis involved in postural anti-gravity maintenance through optogenetic stimulation and movement analysis.

Neural filtering of physiological tremor oscillations to spinal motor neurons mediates short-term acquisition of a skill learning task

This study shows that short-term skill acquisition in a force-matching task involves reduced alpha band neural oscillations and increased coupling between force and target oscillations.

Decision uncertainty as a context for motor memory

The paper shows that decision uncertainty influences motor memory formation and retrieval by contextualizing actions, allowing different motor memories to be formed based on varying levels of uncertainty.

Minimizing command timing volatility is a key factor in skilled actions

The paper proposes that command timing volatility explains movement variability in skilled actions and links it to handedness and motor impairments.

Tool use fine-tunes arm and tool maps

The paper investigates whether hand-held tools can be mapped in space with the same precision as body parts and whether tool use alters these spatial maps.

Influence of Gaze, Vision, and Memory on Hand Kinematics in a Placement Task

The paper investigates how gaze, vision, and memory affect hand placement and orientation during a task involving 2D visual templates, showing feedback-dependent effects on location and orientation errors.