A series of experiments shows how muscle fatigue impairs motor-skill learning on subsequent practice days beyond its effects on task execution.

The ability to quickly re-acquire a previously lost motor skill is associated with lasting synaptic changes in the brain circuit that controls that motor skill.

Sleep spindles, distinctive brain activity patterns occurring in non-REM sleep, modify cross-area connectivity in the motor network relevant for behavioral flexibility, impacting subsequent behavior.

Sequential live imaging of abnormal skull bone fusion in zebrafish reveals a deeply conserved role of two transcription factors, Twist1 and Tcf12, in regulating stem cell activity during growth of the skull.

Virtual investigation of the 3.67-million-year-old skull of 'Little Foot' using synchrotron radiation reveals histological details of Australopithecus dental and bone tissues.

Artificial selection for increased tibia length in mice made their skulls longer, narrower, and flatter, suggesting that even distant skeletal regions can evolve as correlated responses to selection acting locally.

Homology of vertebrate skull structures should be based on evolutionary continuity and an appreciation of germ layer origins and inductive signaling in the embryonic head.

Recordings from the mouse brain as animals learn a lever pressing task reveal how the motor system optimizes skill learning by reducing variability in those aspects of task performance that are essential for achieving a goal.

By demonstrating song learning-related synaptic strengthening and pruning in the vocal control circuits of songbirds, and showing how such changes can reduce the sensitivity of the circuit to ‘noisy’ inputs, a simple neural circuit mechanism for regulating motor variability during motor skill learning is identified.

Detailed analysis of fMRI data shows that sequences of movements are associated with individual patterns of neural activity that become more distinct with training.