Sensorimotor adaptation is essential for keeping our movements well calibrated in response to changes in the body and environment. For over a century, researchers have studied sensorimotor adaptation in laboratory settings that typically involve small sample sizes. While this approach has proved useful for characterizing different learning processes, laboratory studies are not well suited for exploring the myriad of factors that may modulate human performance. Here, using a citizen science website, we collected over 2,000 sessions of data on a visuomotor rotation task. This unique dataset has allowed us to replicate, reconcile and challenge classic findings in the learning and memory literature, as well as discover unappreciated demographic constraints associated with implicit and explicit processes that support sensorimotor adaptation. More generally, this study exemplifies how a large-scale exploratory approach can complement traditional hypothesis-driven laboratory research in advancing sensorimotor neuroscience.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01798-0 | DOI Listing |
Nat Commun
January 2025
Department of Neuroscience, Erasmus MC, Westzeedijk 353, 3015 AA, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Precise temporal control of sensorimotor coordination and adaptation is a fundamental basis of animal behavior. How different brain regions are involved in regulating the flexible temporal adaptation remains elusive. Here, we investigated the neuronal dynamics of the cerebellar interposed nucleus (IpN) and the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) neurons during temporal adaptation between delay eyeblink conditioning (DEC) and trace eyeblink conditioning (TEC).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Natl Acad Sci U S A
January 2025
Section on Perception, Cognition, Action, Laboratory of Sensorimotor Research, National Eye Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD 20892.
To what extent does concept formation require language? Here, we exploit color to address this question and ask whether macaque monkeys have color concepts evident as categories. Macaques have similar cone photoreceptors and central visual circuits to humans, yet they lack language. Whether Old World monkeys such as macaques have consensus color categories is unresolved, but if they do, then language cannot be required.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Rep
January 2025
Cognitive Systems Lab, Institute of Physics, Chemnitz University of Technology, Reichenhainer Str. 70, 09126, Chemnitz, Germany.
Walking is one of the most common forms of self-motion in humans. Most humans can walk effortlessly over flat uniform terrain, but also a variety of more challenging surfaces, as they adjust their gait to the demands of the terrain. In this, they rely in part on the perception of their own gait and of when it needs to be adjusted.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBrain Behav
January 2025
School of Psychology, University of Nottingham University Park, Nottingham, UK.
Background: Rhythmic median nerve stimulation (MNS) at 10 Hz has been shown to cause a substantial reduction in tic frequency in individuals with Tourette syndrome. The mechanism of action is currently unknown but is hypothesized to involve entrainment of oscillations within the sensorimotor cortex.
Objective: We used functional magnetic resonance spectroscopy (fMRS) to explore the dynamic effects of MNS on neurometabolite concentrations.
Commun Psychol
January 2025
State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China.
Infectious diseases have been major causes of death throughout human history and are assumed to broadly affect human psychology. However, whether and how conceptual processing, an internal world model central to various cognitive processes, adapts to such salient stress variables remains largely unknown. To address this, we conducted three studies examining the relationship between pathogen severity and semantic space, probed through the main neurocognitive semantic dimensions revealed by large-scale text analyses: one cross-cultural study (across 43 countries) and two historical studies (over the past 100 years).
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