Mid-Career Prize Lecture
The cerebellum as a predictor in movement and cognition
Chris Miall (University of Birmingham)
I will present a summary of my research team’s efforts over about 25 years to understand the cerebellum’s contributions towards motor control and coordination, and suggest that the most plausible single operation it performs is short term prediction. These predictions are vital in the sensorimotor domain, and may have many other uses, including in cognitive operations. We will therefore also present more recent data from studies of language prediction. I will end with some current work exploring the possibility of using a new form of MEG to record cerebellar signals, that might allow tests of predictive processing in cognitive tasks.
Early-Career Prize Lecture
Reward in the motor system
Joseph Galea (University of Birmingham)
The impact of reward on motor learning and performance has garnered extreme interest over the last decade. This work has created a picture in which reward is seen as a beneficial intervention that enhances speed, accuracy, learning and memory retention. To explain these results, a direct link between reward and dopamine has been proposed in which habitual/energised behaviour is promoted via dopamine’s direct influence on the motor system [1,2]. This talk introduces an alternative hypothesis which proposes that the beneficial effects of reward on motor learning and performance are mainly driven by the greater engagement of explicit control. Using a range of behavioural tasks, we show that reward-based improvements in memory retention are dependent on the development and expression of an explicit strategy [3,4], are associated with working memory capacity (in prep), but unaffected by dopaminergic pharmacological manipulation [5] or by dopaminergic genetic variations (in prep). Finally, we show that the beneficial effects of reward on motor performance have transient properties more akin to explicit control rather than habitual behaviour (in prep). These conclusions are discussed in the context of rehabilitation, and in highlighting the importance of isolating habitual and goal-directed reward-based improvements in motor behaviour.
The cerebellum as a predictor in movement and cognition
Chris Miall (University of Birmingham)
I will present a summary of my research team’s efforts over about 25 years to understand the cerebellum’s contributions towards motor control and coordination, and suggest that the most plausible single operation it performs is short term prediction. These predictions are vital in the sensorimotor domain, and may have many other uses, including in cognitive operations. We will therefore also present more recent data from studies of language prediction. I will end with some current work exploring the possibility of using a new form of MEG to record cerebellar signals, that might allow tests of predictive processing in cognitive tasks.
Early-Career Prize Lecture
Reward in the motor system
Joseph Galea (University of Birmingham)
The impact of reward on motor learning and performance has garnered extreme interest over the last decade. This work has created a picture in which reward is seen as a beneficial intervention that enhances speed, accuracy, learning and memory retention. To explain these results, a direct link between reward and dopamine has been proposed in which habitual/energised behaviour is promoted via dopamine’s direct influence on the motor system [1,2]. This talk introduces an alternative hypothesis which proposes that the beneficial effects of reward on motor learning and performance are mainly driven by the greater engagement of explicit control. Using a range of behavioural tasks, we show that reward-based improvements in memory retention are dependent on the development and expression of an explicit strategy [3,4], are associated with working memory capacity (in prep), but unaffected by dopaminergic pharmacological manipulation [5] or by dopaminergic genetic variations (in prep). Finally, we show that the beneficial effects of reward on motor performance have transient properties more akin to explicit control rather than habitual behaviour (in prep). These conclusions are discussed in the context of rehabilitation, and in highlighting the importance of isolating habitual and goal-directed reward-based improvements in motor behaviour.
- Galea, J.M., et al., The dissociable effects of punishment and reward on motor learning. Nat Neurosci, 2015. 18(4): p. 597-602.
- Quattrocchi, G., et al., Reward and punishment enhance motor adaptation in stroke. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry, 2017.
- Codol, O., P.J. Holland, and J.M. Galea, The relationship between reinforcement and explicit control during visuomotor adaptation. Sci Rep, 2018. 8(1): p. 9121.
- Holland, P., O. Codol, and J.M. Galea, Contribution of explicit processes to reinforcement-based motor learning. J Neurophysiol, 2018. 119(6): p. 2241-2255.
- Quattrocchi, G., et al., Pharmacological Dopamine Manipulation Does Not Alter Reward-Based Improvements in Memory Retention during a Visuomotor Adaptation Task. eNeuro, 2018. 5(3).