TY - JOUR
T1 - Protection and expression of human motor memories
AU - Pekny, Sarah E.
AU - Criscimagna-Hemminger, Sarah E.
AU - Shadmehr, Reza
PY - 2011/9/28
Y1 - 2011/9/28
N2 - When we adapt our movements to a perturbation, and then adapt to another perturbation, is the initial memory destroyed, or is it protected? Despite decades of experiments, this question remains unresolved. The confusion, in our view, is due to the fact that in every instance the approach has been to assay contents of motor memory by retesting with the same perturbations. When performance in retesting is the same as naive, this is usually interpreted as the memory being destroyed. However, it is also possible that the initial memoryis simply masked by the competing memory.Wetrainedhumansin a reaching task in fieldBand then in fieldA(or washout) over an equal number of trials. To assay contents of motor memory, we used a new tool: after completion of training in A, we withheld reinforcement (i.e., reward) for a brief block of trials and then clamped movement errors to zero over a long block of trials.Wefound that this led to spontaneous recovery of B. That is, withholding reinforcement for the current motor output resulted in the expression of the competing memory. Therefore, adaptation followed by washout or reverse adaptation produced competing motor memories. The protection from unlearning was unrelated to sudden changes in performance errors that might signal a contextual change, as competing memories formed even when the perturbations were introduced gradually. Rather, reinforcement appears to be a critical signal that affords protection to motor memories, and lack of reinforcement encourages retrieval of a competing memory.
AB - When we adapt our movements to a perturbation, and then adapt to another perturbation, is the initial memory destroyed, or is it protected? Despite decades of experiments, this question remains unresolved. The confusion, in our view, is due to the fact that in every instance the approach has been to assay contents of motor memory by retesting with the same perturbations. When performance in retesting is the same as naive, this is usually interpreted as the memory being destroyed. However, it is also possible that the initial memoryis simply masked by the competing memory.Wetrainedhumansin a reaching task in fieldBand then in fieldA(or washout) over an equal number of trials. To assay contents of motor memory, we used a new tool: after completion of training in A, we withheld reinforcement (i.e., reward) for a brief block of trials and then clamped movement errors to zero over a long block of trials.Wefound that this led to spontaneous recovery of B. That is, withholding reinforcement for the current motor output resulted in the expression of the competing memory. Therefore, adaptation followed by washout or reverse adaptation produced competing motor memories. The protection from unlearning was unrelated to sudden changes in performance errors that might signal a contextual change, as competing memories formed even when the perturbations were introduced gradually. Rather, reinforcement appears to be a critical signal that affords protection to motor memories, and lack of reinforcement encourages retrieval of a competing memory.
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U2 - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1704-11.2011
DO - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1704-11.2011
M3 - Article
C2 - 21957245
AN - SCOPUS:80053272361
SN - 0270-6474
VL - 31
SP - 13829
EP - 13839
JO - Journal of Neuroscience
JF - Journal of Neuroscience
IS - 39
ER -