Adaptive Regulation of Motor Variability.

ABSTRACT: Trial-to-trial movement variability can both drive motor learning and interfere with expert performance, suggesting benefits of regulating it in context-specific ways. Here we address whether and how the brain regulates motor variability as a function of performance by training rats to execute ballistic forelimb movements for reward. Behavioral datasets comprising millions of trials revealed that motor variability is regulated by two distinct processes. A fast process modulates variability as a function of recent trial outcomes, increasing it when performance is poor and vice versa. A slower process tunes the gain of the fast process based on the uncertainty in the task's reward landscape. Simulations demonstrated that this regulation strategy optimizes reward accumulation over a wide rang

SUBMITTER: Dhawale AK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7339968 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature