Rewarding feedback promotes motor skill consolidation via striatal activity

Knowledge of performance can activate the striatum, a key region of the reward system and highly relevant for motivated behavior. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, striatal activity linked to knowledge of performance was measured during the training of a repetitive arc-tracking task. Knowledge of performance was given after a random selection of trials or after good performance. The third group received knowledge of performance after good performance plus a monetary reward. Skill learning was measured from pre- to post- (acquisition) and from post- to 24h posttraining (consolidation). Our results demonstrate an influence of feedback on motor skill learning. Adding a monetary reward after good performance leads to better consolidation and higher ventral striatal activation than knowledge of performance alone. In turn, rewarding strategies that increase ventral striatal response during training of a motor skill may be utilized to improve skill consolidation.