Somatosensory cortex participates in the consolidation of human motor memory

by Neeraj Kumar, Timothy F. Manning, David J. Ostry

Newly learned motor skills are initially labile and then consolidated to permit retention. The circuits that enable the consolidation of motor memories remain uncertain. Most work to date has focused on primary motor cortex, and although there is ample evidence of learning-related plasticity in motor cortex, direct evidence for its involvement in memory consolidation is limited. Learning-related plasticity is also observed in somatosensory cortex, and accordingly, it may also be involved in memory consolidation. Here, by using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to block consolidation, we report the first direct evidence that plasticity in somatosensory cortex participates in the consolidation of motor memory. Participants made movements to targets while a robot applied forces to the hand to alter somatosensory feedback. Immediately following adaptation, continuous theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (cTBS) was delivered to block retention; then, following a 24-hour delay, which would normally permit consolidation, we assessed whether there was an impairment. It was found that when mechanical loads were introduced gradually to engage implicit learning processes, suppression of somatosensory cortex following training almost entirely eliminated retention. In contrast, cTBS to motor cortex following learning had little effect on retention at all; retention following cTBS to motor cortex was not different than following sham TMS stimulation. We confirmed that cTBS to somatosensory cortex interfered with normal sensory function and that it blocked motor memory consolidation and not the ability to retrieve a consolidated motor memory. In conclusion, the findings are consistent with the hypothesis that in adaptation learning, somatosensory cortex rather than motor cortex is involved in the consolidation of motor memory.