TY - JOUR
T1 - Revisiting the Role of the Medial Temporal Lobe in Motor Learning
AU - McDougle, Samuel D.
AU - Wilterson, Sarah A.
AU - Turk-Browne, Nicholas B.
AU - Taylor, Jordan A.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.
PY - 2022/2/1
Y1 - 2022/2/1
N2 - Classic taxonomies of memory distinguish explicit and implicit memory systems, placing motor skills squarely in the latter branch. This assertion is in part a consequence of founda-tional discoveries showing significant motor learning in amnesics. Those findings suggest that declarative memory processes in the medial temporal lobe (MTL) do not contribute to motor learning. Here, we revisit this issue, testing an individual (L. S. J.) with severe MTL damage on four motor learning tasks and comparing her performance to age-matched controls. Consistent with previous findings in amnesics, we observed that L. S. J. could improve motor performance despite having significantly impaired declarative memory. However, she tended to perform poorly relative to age-matched controls, with deficits apparently related to flexible action selection. Further supporting an action selection deficit, L. S. J. fully failed to learn a task that required the acquisition of arbitrary action–outcome associations. We thus propose a modest revision to the classic taxonomic model: Although MTL-dependent memory processes are not necessary for some motor learning to occur, they play a significant role in the acquisition, implementation, and retrieval of action selection strategies. These findings have implications for our understanding of the neural correlates of motor learning, the psychological mechanisms of skill, and the theory of multiple memory systems.
AB - Classic taxonomies of memory distinguish explicit and implicit memory systems, placing motor skills squarely in the latter branch. This assertion is in part a consequence of founda-tional discoveries showing significant motor learning in amnesics. Those findings suggest that declarative memory processes in the medial temporal lobe (MTL) do not contribute to motor learning. Here, we revisit this issue, testing an individual (L. S. J.) with severe MTL damage on four motor learning tasks and comparing her performance to age-matched controls. Consistent with previous findings in amnesics, we observed that L. S. J. could improve motor performance despite having significantly impaired declarative memory. However, she tended to perform poorly relative to age-matched controls, with deficits apparently related to flexible action selection. Further supporting an action selection deficit, L. S. J. fully failed to learn a task that required the acquisition of arbitrary action–outcome associations. We thus propose a modest revision to the classic taxonomic model: Although MTL-dependent memory processes are not necessary for some motor learning to occur, they play a significant role in the acquisition, implementation, and retrieval of action selection strategies. These findings have implications for our understanding of the neural correlates of motor learning, the psychological mechanisms of skill, and the theory of multiple memory systems.
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U2 - 10.1162/jocn_a_01809
DO - 10.1162/jocn_a_01809
M3 - Article
C2 - 34942649
AN - SCOPUS:85124056793
SN - 0898-929X
VL - 34
SP - 532
EP - 549
JO - Journal of cognitive neuroscience
JF - Journal of cognitive neuroscience
IS - 3
ER -