Researchers discover new brain circuit, crucial for learning new motor skills

Lisbon [Portugal], February 10 : Learning is never ending. It is an integral part and parcel of growing up. Similarly, learning new motor skills is a critical aspect of our lives. From playing the piano to riding a bike, it would be difficult to imagine life without it. But how does the brain do it? A new study has shed light on a newly discovered brain circuit that may endow us with this remarkable ability.

The study was published in the scientific journal 'Science Advances'.

The cortex forms the outer layer of our brain and is the ultimate multi-tasker, involved in everything from language and cognition to memory and voluntary actions. It is in fact, being used to read this very sentence by you. But it doesn't act alone and makes extensive connections with many other brain regions.

"We were particularly interested in two major types of cells in the cortex, known as IT (intratelencephalic) and PT (pyramidal tract) neurons", said Nicolas Morgenstern, the first author of this study which was developed in the group at the time led by Rui Costa, at Champalimaud Foundation, in Lisbon, Portugal.

"Both IT and PT cells send signals from the cortex to another area buried deeper in the brain, called the striatum. These 'cortico-striatal' connections (i.e., connections from the cortex to the striatum) are very important for motor learning and have been implicated in movement disorders like Parkinson's disease."

This was where the third major character in the story appeared: the spiny projection neurons (SPNs), which made up 95 per cent of the neurons in the striatum. SPNs are directly contacted by both IT and PT cells. "We wanted to understand the different roles of IT and PT cells in this brain circuit, which is so important for motor learning and behaviour."

( Details and picture courtesy ANI, the content is auto-generated from feed.)

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