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Cerebellum Activation Associated with Performance Change but Not Motor Learning
R. D. Seidler,12*A. Purushotham,3S.-G. Kim,3K. Uurbil,3D. Willingham,4J. Ashe12
The issue of whether the cerebellum contributes to motor
skill learning is controversial, principally because of the difficultyof separating the effects of motor learning from changes in
performance.We performed a functional magnetic resonance imaging
investigationduring an implicit, motor sequence-learning task that was
designedto separate these two processes. During the sequence-encodingphase, human participants performed a concurrent distractor taskthat
served to suppress the performance changes associated withlearning.
Upon removal of the distractor, participants showedevidence of having
learned. No cerebellar activation was associatedwith the learning
phase, despite extensive involvement of othercortical and subcortical
regions. There was, however, significantcerebellar activation during
the expression of learning; thus,the cerebellum does not contribute to
learning of the motor skillitself but is engaged primarily in the
modification of performance.
1 Brain Sciences Center (11B), Veterans Affairs
Medical Center, Minneapolis, MN 55417, USA.
2 Department of Neuroscience, University of
Minnesota, 321 Church Street, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.
3 Center for Magnetic Resonance Research, University
of Minnesota, 2021 Sixth Street, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.
4 Department of Psychology, University of Virginia,
Gilmer 102, Post Office Box 400400, Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA.
*
Present address: Division of Kinesiology, University of
Michigan, 401 Washtenaw Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:
ashe{at}umn.edu
urbil,
