Lawson Regan R, Gayle Jordan O, Wheaton Lewis A
School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America.
School of Psychology, Morehouse College, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2017 Apr 14;12(4):e0175176. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0175176. eCollection 2017.
Deficits in sequential motor learning have been observed in many patient populations. Having an understanding of the individual neural progression associated with sequential learning in healthy individuals may provide valuable insights for effective interventions with these patients. Due to individual variability in motor skill acquisition, the temporal course of such learning will be vary, suggesting a need for a more individualized approach. Knowing when a subject becomes aware of movement patterns may provide a marker with which to identify each individual's learning time course. To avoid interfering with the incidental nature of discovery during learning, such an indicator requires an indirect, behaviorally-based approach. In Part I, our study aimed to identify a reliable behavioral indicator predictive of the presence of incidental explicit awareness in a sequential motor learning task. Part II, utilized the predictive indicator and EEG to provide neural validation of perceptual processing changes temporally correlated with the indicator. Results of Part I provide a reliable predictive indicator for the timing of explicit awareness development. Results from Part II demonstrates strong classification reliability, as well as a significant neural correlation with behavior for subjects developing awareness (EXP), not observed with subjects without awareness (NOEXP). Additionally, a temporal correlation of peak activation between neural regions was noted over frontoparietal regions, suggesting that the incidental discovery of motor patterns may involve a facilitative network during awareness development. The proposed indicator provides a tool in which to further examine potential impacts of awareness associated with incidental, or exploratory, motor learning, while the individual nature of the indicator provides a tool for monitoring progress in rehabilitative, exploratory motor learning paradigms.
在许多患者群体中都观察到了序列运动学习方面的缺陷。了解健康个体中与序列学习相关的个体神经进展，可能为针对这些患者的有效干预提供有价值的见解。由于运动技能习得存在个体差异，这种学习的时间进程会有所不同，这表明需要一种更个性化的方法。知道受试者何时意识到运动模式，可能会提供一个标记，用以识别每个个体的学习时间进程。为了避免干扰学习过程中发现的偶然性质，这样一个指标需要一种基于行为的间接方法。在第一部分中，我们的研究旨在确定一个可靠的行为指标，以预测序列运动学习任务中偶然的明确意识的存在。第二部分利用该预测指标和脑电图，对与该指标在时间上相关的感知处理变化进行神经验证。第一部分的结果为明确意识发展的时间提供了一个可靠的预测指标。第二部分的结果表明分类可靠性很强，并且对于有意识发展的受试者（EXP），其神经与行为之间存在显著相关性，而无意识的受试者（NOEXP）则未观察到这种相关性。此外，在前额叶顶叶区域观察到神经区域之间峰值激活的时间相关性，这表明运动模式的偶然发现可能在意识发展过程中涉及一个促进网络。所提出的指标提供了一种工具，可用于进一步研究与偶然或探索性运动学习相关的意识的潜在影响，而该指标的个体性质为监测康复性探索性运动学习范式中的进展提供了一种工具。
