Summary
In humans, training in which good performance is rewarded or bad performance punished results in transient behavioral improvements [1–3]. Their relative effects on consolidation and long-term retention, critical behavioral stages for successful learning [4, 5], are not known. Here, we investigated the effects of reward and punishment on these different stages of human motor skill learning. We studied healthy subjects who trained on a motor task under rewarded, punished, or neutral control conditions. Performance was tested before, and immediately, 6 hs, 24 hs and 30 days after training in the absence of reward or punishment. Performance improvements immediately after training were comparable in the three groups. At 6 hs, the rewarded group maintained performance gains while the other two groups experienced significant forgetting. At 24 hs, the reward group showed significant offline (posttraining) improvements while the other two groups did not. At 30 days, the rewarded group retained the gains identified at 24 hs, while the other two groups experienced significant forgetting. We conclude that training under rewarded conditions is more effective than training under punished or neutral conditions in eliciting lasting motor learning, an advantage driven by offline memory gains that persist over time.
Convergent findings point to a left-sided specialization for the representation of learned actions in right-handed humans, but it is unknown whether analogous hemispheric specialization exists for motor skill learning. In the present study, we explored this question by comparing the effects of anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over either left or right motor cortex (M1) on motor skill learning in either hand, using a tDCS montage to better isolate stimulation to one hemisphere. Results were compared with those previously found with a montage more commonly used in the field. Six groups trained for three sessions on a visually guided sequential pinch force modulation task with their right or left hand and received right M1, left M1, or sham tDCS. A linear mixed-model analysis for motor skill showed a significant main effect for stimulation group (left M1, right M1, sham) but not for hand (right, left) or their interaction. Left M1 tDCS induced significantly greater skill learning than sham when hand data were combined, a result consistent not only with the hypothesized left hemisphere specialization for motor skill learning but also with possible increased left M1 responsiveness to tDCS. The unihemispheric montage effect size was one-half that of the more common montage, and subsequent power analysis indicated that 75 subjects per group would be needed to detect differences seen with only 12 subjects with the customary bihemispheric montage.
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