A growing cognitive model of motor balance skill (CMMBS), which simulates the manners of human beings and animals in motor balance skill learning, is presented. CMMBS, whose architecture is similar to the reflex arc of the biologic nerve, adopts a growing algorithm from reference to Growing Cell Structures in order to perform the pattern classification in the nerve center. This growing mechanis...

The purpose of this article is to provide a brief review of the principles of motor control and learning. Different models of motor control from historical to contemporary are presented with emphasis on the Systems model. Concepts of motor learning including skill acquisition, measurement of learning, and methods to promote skill acquisition by examining the many facets of practice scheduling a...

Here our goal was to determine the magnitude of sleep-related motor skill enhancement. Performance on the finger tapping task (FTT) was evaluated after a 90 min daytime nap (n=15) or after quiet wakefulness (n=15). By introducing a slight modification in the formula used to calculate the offline gains we were able to refine the estimated magnitude of sleep׳s effect on motor skills. The raw valu...

This study examined motivational effects of feedback on motor learning. Specifically, we investigated the influence of social-comparative feedback on the learning of a balance task (stabilometer). In addition to veridical feedback (error scores reflecting deviation from the target horizontal platform position) about their own performance after each trial, two groups received false normative inf...

Learning of a procedural motor-skill task is known to progress through a series of unique memory stages. Performance initially improves during training, and continues to improve, without further rehearsal, across subsequent periods of sleep. Here, we investigate how this delayed sleep-dependent learning is affected when the task characteristics are varied across several degrees of difficulty, a...

The motor performance of patients with Parkinson's disease is degraded, but it is unclear whether their motor learning (adaptation learning and skill learning) ability is impaired. To assess the ability of these patients to learn motor tasks, we studied nine Parkinson's disease patients and eight age-matched normal (control) subjects who repetitively traced, as rapidly and accurately as possibl...

J Rehabil Med Suppl 41, 2003 DOI 10.1080/16501960310010070 It is now widely recognized that the cerebral cortex of adult human and non-human mammals is capable of widespread functional and structural plasticity. During the learning of new skills, cortical regions associated with sensorimotor function of the body parts most utilized for the skilled task come to be represented over larger cortica...

Current evidence indicates that repetitive motor behavior during motor learning paradigms can produce changes in representational organization in motor cortex. In a previous study, we trained adult squirrel monkeys on a repetitive motor task that required the retrieval of food pellets from a small-diameter well. It was found that training produced consistent task-related changes in movement rep...

We investigated whether fine motor and expressive language skills are related in the later-born siblings of children with autism (heightened-risk, HR infants) who are at increased risk for language delays. We observed 34 HR infants longitudinally from 12 to 36 months. We used parent report and standardized observation measures to assess fine motor skill from 12 to 24 months in HR infants (Study...

Learning of complex motor skills requires learning of component movements as well as the sequential structure of their order and timing. Using a Serial Interception Sequence Learning (SISL) task, participants learned a sequence of precisely timed interception responses through training with a repeating sequence. Following initial implicit learning of the repeating sequence, functional MRI data ...