How Does Our Brain Work, Learn Skillful Movements? Researchers Show the Way Through Lab Rats’ ‘Little Dance’

A researcher at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and his colleagues from Harvard University recently showed in rats how some brain regions need to work together to obtain a skill and duplicate it flawlessly with every rat adding to their own personal flair in a "dance" form.

As indicated in a EurekAlert! report, learning a multifaceted skilled movement such as tying shoes or playing an instrument needs practice.

Following repetition of the same movements over and over, people frequently develop a formulaic way of performing the movement and may not even need to think about it anymore.

Even though such repetitive tasks are accomplished every day, little is known about the manner the brain is learning, repeating, and perfecting them.

Rat Models

According to Steffen Wolff, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, aside from following the basic curiosity to find out how the brain is working and how movements are learned, this new study, published in Science Advances, "has many direct applications.

He added, understanding the circumstances under which healthy brains are learning informs how an individual should train for highly skilled activities such as certain sports.

More importantly, the professor also explained, "One day, hopefully, the insights gathered from this basic research program" will contribute to helping people who have brain impairment or illnesses affective movements.

The researchers trained rats to examine how their brains are learning and performing new skills. In these investigations, the rats have learned to "press a lever" in a particular way so they could get a drink of water.

Developing a 'Little Dance'

A similar Medical Xpress report specified that according to Dr. Wolff, during the learning process, the rats develop a "little dance" and each of them comes up with its own choreography.

The professor also explained that after the rats perfected their technique, they continue doing whatever worked for them while learning. The researchers would see one mouse scratching the wall, another tapping its foot, and another sticking out a tongue while at the same time, pressing the lever.

These dances are akin to the superstitious movements performed by baseball pitchers each time they wind up to pitch the ball, like togging on their hat's brim or scratching the sand using their foot.

In previous research, the research team showed that when the investigators damaged the motor cortex, part of the brain's outermost layer, the mice could not learn their little dance movements.

Role of Motor Cortex

In this new study, the study authors put their pieces together discovering if the motor cortex is teaching the basal ganglia "to produce the new skill."

The researchers used viruses to shut down the link between the two brain areas. As they expected, they discovered that without the motor cortex that teaches the basal ganglia, the rats could not develop any of their dance moves anymore. Moreover, the team wanted to find out if the basal ganglia worked together as well, with other brain parts to execute the learned skill.

According to Dean Albert Reece, MD, Ph.D., MBA, Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs, this new study helps to show the logic of how individual regions of the brain work together to control skill learning and execution, an initial step in the team's quest to help treat patients who have motor movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease, as well as injuries from trauma or stroke to the brain's motor-controlling parts.

Related information about how the brain is learning is shown on TheTherapyGroup's YouTube video below:

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