, 2010). Consistent with this proposal, it was recently shown that interindividual differences in the magnitude of benefits of randomized practice schedules correlate with FA within the corticostriatal tract connecting left sensorimotor cortex to posterior putamen (Song et al., 2011). Understanding the influence of practice structure on the consolidation and retention of skilled motor behavior has potential

clinical implications, because this knowledge may translate into improved training-based neurorehabilitative interventions after brain lesions. Technological and methodological advances in neuroimaging and in noninvasive brain stimulation in humans, together with

novel findings stemming from animal-based studies, http://www.selleckchem.com/btk.html provide new insights into the neuroplastic mechanisms that underlie motor skill learning, suggesting that skill acquisition is subserved by multiple mechanisms that operate across different temporal scales. Multivariate and model-free approaches for analyzing neuroimaging data have emerged and may turn out to be a useful tool for examining the larger-scale functional reorganization associated with fast and slow motor skill learning. Another recent and intriguing development concerns the analysis of modulation of resting-state spontaneous fluctuations in BOLD activity as a possible means for studying the offline consolidation of motor skills. Noninvasive brain stimulation techniques have been used to identify a causal role for the activity in various brain regions in the acquisition CP 690550 of skilled motor behavior, motor memory consolidation, and long-term retention. Studies in laboratory animals identified, with fine temporal and spatial resolution, the involvement of distinct neural substrates in the various stages of motor skill learning and also helped identify the possible cellular and molecular underpinnings of learning-induced plasticity. Advances were also made in uncovering the mechanisms behind structural plasticity associated with the acquisition

of motor skills. Learning-induced structural changes in both gray and white matter have been documented in humans at increasingly smaller temporal scales. 3-mercaptopyruvate sulfurtransferase Similar advances were made in the study of learning and experience-induced structural plasticity in laboratory animals, yet possible links between these findings and demonstrations of structural plasticity in humans are, to date, still speculative; however, they show clear translational value in understanding motor skill learning after brain lesions (Clarkson et al., 2010, Clarkson et al., 2011 and Li et al., 2010). We would like to thank Barry Richmond, Sunbin Song, and Nitzan Censor for providing useful suggestions.