The decay and consolidation of effector-independent motor memories. Sci Rep 2022 Feb 24;12(1):3131
Date
02/26/2022Pubmed ID
35210478Pubmed Central ID
PMC8873205DOI
10.1038/s41598-022-07032-7Scopus ID
2-s2.0-85125363076 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site) 3 CitationsAbstract
Learning a motor adaptation task produces intrinsically unstable or transient motor memories. Despite the presence of effector-independent motor memories following the learning of novel environmental dynamics, it remains largely unknown how those memory traces decay in different contexts and whether an "offline" consolidation period protects memories against decay. Here, we exploit inter-effector transfer to address these questions. We found that newly acquired motor memories formed with one effector could be partially retrieved by the untrained effector to enhance its performance when the decay occurred with the passage of time or "washout" trials on which error feedback was provided. The decay of motor memories was slower following "error-free" trials, on which errors were artificially clamped to zero or removed, compared with "washout" trials. However, effector-independent memory components were abolished following movements made in the absence of task errors, resulting in no transfer gains. The brain can stabilize motor memories during daytime wakefulness. We found that 6 h of wakeful resting increased the resistance of effector-independent memories to decay. Collectively, our results suggest that the decay of effector-independent motor memories is context-dependent, and offline processing preserves those memories against decay, leading to improvements of the subsequent inter-effector transfer.
Author List
Bao S, Wang J, Wright DL, Buchanan JJ, Lei YAuthor
Jinsung Wang PhD Assistant Professor in the Human Movement Sciences department at University of Wisconsin - MilwaukeeMESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold
AdolescentAdult
Brain
Female
Humans
Male
Memory
Motor Skills
Psychomotor Performance
Wakefulness
