Long-term motor skill training with individually adjusted progressive difficulty enhances learning and promotes corticospinal plasticity

Abstract

Motor skill acquisition depends on central nervous plasticity. However, behavioural determinants leading to long lasting corticospinal plasticity and motor expertise remain unexplored. Here we investigate behavioural and electrophysiological effects of individually tailored progressive practice during long-term motor skill training. Two groups of participants practiced a visuomotor task requiring precise control of the right digiti minimi for 6 weeks. One group trained with constant task difficulty, while the other group trained with progressively increasing task difficulty, i.e. continuously adjusted to their individual skill level. Compared to constant practice, progressive practice resulted in a two-fold greater performance at an advanced task level and associated increases in corticospinal excitability. Differences were maintained 8 days later, whereas both groups demonstrated equal retention 14 months later. We demonstrate that progressive practice enhances motor skill learning and promotes corticospinal plasticity. These findings underline the importance of continuously challenging patients and athletes to promote neural plasticity, skilled performance, and recovery.

A preliminary study to evaluate white matter structural correlates of delayed visuospatial memory and one-week motor skill retention in nondemented older adults

“…A possible explanation for the observed behavioral relationship between Delayed Recall scores and one-week motor skill retention is that visuospatial memory and motor learning engage overlapping neural pathways. Our results are consistent with reports from neuroanatomical and neurophysiological studies implicating the CST (38–40) and SLF (10,15,41) in motor learning behaviors, and the SLF (42–46) and anterior thalamic nuclei (47–52) in visuospatial processing and memory. In line with this, a recent study collected resting state functional MRI from older adults to test functional connectivity of neural networks associated with Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test performance; notably, the authors reported significant connections between both motor-parietal and motor-hippocampal regions (53).…”

Repeated motor cortex theta-burst stimulation produces persistent strengthening of corticospinal motor output and durable spinal cord structural changes in the rat

“…Our model is that repetitive daily induction of late/persistent MEP LTP by chronic iTBS in awake behaving rats produces a day-to-day carryover of MEP enhancement and a stronger MCX-to-muscle recruitment relation. This is similar to what occurs during motor practice [67].…”

Acquisition of novel ball-related skills associated with sports experience

“…Regarding the gain of the corticospinal tract, plastic changes based on practice (years of sports experience) could have occurred or the original gain features could have matched the selected sports, which might be reflected in our findings. Nonetheless, even if our findings are related to the latter case, it has been reported that repeated practice can induce plastic changes 27 – 30 . Therefore, the present results should partially reflect the neural plasticity in each participant based on their experience.…”