TY - JOUR TI - Skill learning strengthens cortical representations of motor sequences AU - Wiestler, Tobias AU - Diedrichsen, Jörn A2 - Culham, Jody C VL - 2 PY - 2013 DA - 2013/07/09 SP - e00801 C1 - eLife 2013;2:e00801 DO - 10.7554/eLife.00801 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.00801 AB - Motor-skill learning can be accompanied by both increases and decreases in brain activity. Increases may indicate neural recruitment, while decreases may imply that a region became unimportant or developed a more efficient representation of the skill. These overlapping mechanisms make interpreting learning-related changes of spatially averaged activity difficult. Here we show that motor-skill acquisition is associated with the emergence of highly distinguishable activity patterns for trained movement sequences, in the absence of average activity increases. During functional magnetic resonance imaging, participants produced either four trained or four untrained finger sequences. Using multivariate pattern analysis, both untrained and trained sequences could be discriminated in primary and secondary motor areas. However, trained sequences were classified more reliably, especially in the supplementary motor area. Our results indicate skill learning leads to the development of specialized neuronal circuits, which allow the execution of fast and accurate sequential movements without average increases in brain activity. KW - Motor learning KW - multi voxel pattern analysis KW - fMRI KW - Sequence learning JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -