Motor Sequences

Motor Sequence learning has a central role in humans’ daily motor activities. Here we describe the mechanisms underlying the acquisition, representation, and retention of implicit and explicit learning of motor sequences and the currently available knowledge concerning the neural substrates mediating these processes. We present an anatomically supported model that describes the brain areas mediating motor sequence learning and discuss the explanation it provides for the findings that a newly trained motor task is represented in terms of several different coordinate systems (extrinsic spatial coordinates vs. intrinsic motor coordinates) throughout the training period as is evident from the evolution of different task features (e.g., speed and accuracy). We then discuss several possible mechanisms (superposition, coarticulation) allowing for the concatenation of basic motion elements (primitives) into smoothly performed movements or motor sequences and discuss the importance of sleep in motot consolidation, retention, and performance.