Moss on a wall.
Neuroscientists
Discover How Practice Makes Perfect
Christopher Bergland
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and
Princeton University
have made a breakthrough discovery
that explains how the muscle-controlling neurons of the
brain master skills through practice.
The research was conducted by Javier Medina, assistant
professor in the Department of Psychology in Penn's School of Arts and
Sciences, and Farzaneh Najafi, a graduate student in the Department
of Biology. They collaborated with postdoctoral fellow
Andrea Giovannucci
and associate professor Samuel S. H. Wang of Princeton
University.
The study titled, “Sensory-Driven Enhancement
of Calcium Signals in Individual Purkinje Cell Dendrites of Awake Mice” was
published in the February 2014 journal Cell Reports.
Purkinje Cells in the Cerebellum Create
Muscle Memory
The cerebellum (Latin for “little brain”) is
the brain's primary motor control center.
It contains thousands of Purkinje cells which receive
messages from a climbing fiber,
which is a type of neuron that extends from the brainstem
and sends feedback from every muscle throughout your body. In order to perfect
motor skills, the brain has a feedback system
that monitors when movements go right, and when movements
go wrong.
Purkinje cells are the neurons that coordinate all the
movements of the body.
Climbing fibers are the neurons that provide feedback
when there is an error or unexpected sensation. Together Purkinje cells and climbing
fibers work in harmony to fine-tune motor control.
When I published The Athlete’s Way (St.
Martin's Press) in 2007 neuroscientists
were still unsure exactly how the brain created muscle
memory. Luckily, my father
who was a neuroscientist and neurosurgeon and wrote a
book titled The Fabric of Mind (Viking)
had long believed that the Purkinje cells of the
cerebellum were the key to mastering a skill
through practice. Because of this, I put Purkinje cells
and the cerebellum in the spotlight
as the key to The Athlete’s Way.
When I was growing up, my dad would coach me at tennis
saying, "Think about hammering
and forging the muscle memory of your cerebellum with
every stroke."
These new discoveries help explain exactly how that
process works.
The cerebellum is only 10 percent of brain volume but
houses over 50 percent of the brain’s
total neurons. My dad always said, “Whatever the
cerebellum is doing, it’s doing a lot of it.”
I trusted what he called "an educated guess"
that the cerebellum was just as important as the cerebrum when I created the
"up brain-down brain" split-brain model for The Athlete's
Way.
A decade since I originally wrote the manuscript
for The Athlete’s Way—after shaping the neuroscience ideas
through daily conversations with my father—it’s exciting to see
cutting edge neuroscience confirm my dad's hunches.
Although my father passed away in 2007,
I know these new findings about Purkinje cells and
climbing fibers would put him over the moon.
For decades, the enigma of how the feedback system
between climbing fibers and Purkinje cells work together has perplexed
neuroscientists. In this breakthrough study, the Penn team has
shown for the first time that there is a measurable difference between
"true" and "false" signals.
This knowledge will greatly advance future studies of
fine motor control,
particularly with regard to how movements can be improved
with practice.
This discovery gives new and specific evidence to the
mechanisms of cerebellar neuroplasticity.
The fact that new neural pathways become hard-wired in
response to error signals from the climbing fibers allows the cerebellum to
send better instructions to motor neurons the next time
the same action is attempted. This is why you never
forget how to ride a bike.
Conclusion:
Purkinje Cells, Climbing Fibers, and the Cerebellum Remain Mysterious
The exact mechanism that allows individual Purkinje cells
to differentiate between the two kinds
of climbing fiber signals remains an open question and
more research is needed.
Knowing that Purkinje cells are able to distinguish when
their corresponding muscle neurons encounter an error will probably change
future studies of fine motor control.
Hopefully, this new discovery from Penn scientists will
lead to new research into the fundamentals of neuroplasticity and ways to
improve the mastery of any skill through practice, practice, practice.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201403/neuroscientists-discover-how-practice-makes-perfect
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