Un-learning a motor task: Brief reactivation allows to erase motor memories

(Verlernen einer motorischen Aufgabe: Kurze Reaktivierung ermöglicht das Löschen von motorischen Erinnerungen)

Learning new skills is inherent to many sports such as golf, playing tennis, but also sailing, mountain biking and many more. Much is known about how these motor skills are learned and consolidated in the human brain, but how can we un-learn movements, for example, when a wrong technique has been acquired? A decade ago, Walker et al. showed that a motor skill that has been stabilized and consolidated, can become fragile again after brief reactivation [1]. This fragile state renders it again vulnerable to interference from a competing motor task and allows the motor memory to be partly erased. Here we tested whether similar interference effects can be induced when movement observation instead of physical execution is used to reactivate the motor memory. Subjects were assigned to different experimental groups. All acquired a fixed 5-element sequence at day 1 by practicing the sequence for 12 blocks (30s each). At day 2 they briefly rehearsed the same sequence for 3 blocks either by physical execution or movement observation. Immediately after rehearsal, subjects performed an interfering motor task (learning a new sequence during 12 training blocks). At day 3, retention was tested for the sequence learned initially. Results show that reactivating the memory by mere observation followed by the interfering motor task, did not improve nor decrease performance. Also, the group that reactivated the motor memory physically was only minimally affected by the interfering task. However, we observed that 3 blocks of reactivation (approx. 75 trials) were sufficient to trigger a second phase of motor learning at day 2 in most of our subjects. Based on animal studies, showing that one-trial-reactivation is enough to render an acquired fear memory fragile and susceptible to interference [2], we designed a new experiment such that the sequence was reactivated only very shortly (performing it 5 times instead of approx. 75 times). When this brief reactivation was followed by the interfering motor task, we found a clear decrease in performance on day 3, indicating that we successfully destabilized and partly erased the motor memory of the initially acquired sequence. We conclude that if a motor memory is only briefly reactivated, not initiating new learning, stable motor memories are rendered fragile and susceptible to interference. This mechanism is highly relevant for athletes who want to un-learn wrong techniques.
© Copyright 2012 17th Annual Congress of the European College of Sport Science (ECSS), Bruges, 4. -7. July 2012. Veröffentlicht von Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Schlagworte: Fertigkeit Bewegung Bewegungsfertigkeit Lernen motorisches Lernen Methode Bewegungsgenauigkeit Bewegungsmerkmal Bewegungsvorstellung
Notationen: Trainingswissenschaft
Veröffentlicht in: 17th Annual Congress of the European College of Sport Science (ECSS), Bruges, 4. -7. July 2012
Herausgeber: R. Meeusen, J. Duchateau, B. Roelands, M. Klass, B. De Geus, S. Baudry, E. Tsolakidis
Veröffentlicht: Brügge Vrije Universiteit Brussel 2012
Seiten: 82
Dokumentenarten: Kongressband, Tagungsbericht
Sprache: Englisch
Level: hoch