Savings in visuomotor learning are associated with connectivity changes within a cerebello-thalamo-cortical network encoding movement errors

TL;DR

The study shows that faster relearning of motor tasks is linked to changes in brain connectivity related to movement errors.

Contribution

The study identifies a specific cerebello-thalamo-cortical network whose connectivity strengthens during relearning, linking it to savings.

Findings

A cerebello-thalamo-cortical network is involved in processing movement errors during adaptation.

Strengthened connectivity in this network during re-adaptation correlates with greater savings in learning.

Key connections include the cerebellar lobule VI and ventrolateral thalamus, and primary somatosensory cortex and rostral cingulate motor zone.

Abstract

Savings refer to faster relearning upon re-exposure to a previously experienced movement perturbation. One theory posits that the brain recognizes past errors, enabling more efficient learning from them. If this is the case, there should be a modification in the neural response to errors during re-exposure to the perturbation. To investigate this hypothesis, we used fMRI to measure brain activity as participants adapted to a visuomotor perturbation across two sessions spaced one day apart, focusing on neural responses to movement errors. The magnitude of the movement error was incorporated into different types of GLMs to study error-related activation and co-activation (or functional connectivity). We identified a cerebello-thalamo-cortical network involved in processing movement errors during adaptation. We observed strengthened connectivity within this network during re-adaptation, particularly between the cerebellar lobule VI and the ventrolateral thalamus, as well as between the primary somatosensory cortex and the rostral cingulate motor zone. Importantly, participants with the greatest increases in connectivity strength also exhibited the largest amounts of savings. These results establish a link between the brain’s ability to represent errors and the phenomenon of savings.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00429-025-03013-4.

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