Bilateral basal ganglia activation associated with sensorimotor adaptation

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Motor Control
• Cognitive Science

Background:

• Sensorimotor adaptation involves kinematic (visual feedback) and kinetic (force feedback) types.
• Neuroimaging shows basal ganglia in kinetic but not kinematic adaptation, despite patient deficits.
• This discrepancy motivates further investigation into kinematic adaptation's neural basis.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate basal ganglia involvement in early kinematic sensorimotor adaptation using fMRI.
• To resolve the apparent discrepancy between neuroimaging and patient studies regarding basal ganglia function in kinematic adaptation.

Main Methods:

• Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to scan human subjects.
• Subjects performed a joystick aiming task with visuomotor rotations.
• The focus was on brain activity during the initial minutes of practice.

Main Results:

• Early kinematic adaptation showed BOLD activation in the cerebellum and sensory/motor cortex.
• Novel finding: bilateral basal ganglia activation, including the globus pallidus, putamen, and caudate nucleus.
• Specific activations in right and left basal ganglia/cortical regions suggest roles in spatial and sensorimotor processing.

Conclusions:

• The basal ganglia play a significant role in the early stages of kinematic sensorimotor adaptation.
• Neural correlates of kinematic adaptation parallel those of other skill learning types.
• These findings provide the first clear evidence of basal ganglia involvement in visuomotor rotation adaptation.