Nature Neuroscience8, 813 - 819 (2005)
Published online: 22 May 2005; | doi:10.1038/nn1470
There is an Erratum (July 2005) associated with this Article.
Instructive signals for motor learning from visual cortical area MT
Megan R Carey1, 2, Javier F Medina1
& Stephen G Lisberger1
1
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, W.M. Keck Foundation Center for Integrative Neuroscience, Neuroscience Graduate Program, and Department of Physiology, University of California, San Francisco, California 94143-0444, USA.
2
Present address: Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, 220 Longwood Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA.
Sensory error signals have long been proposed to act as instructive signals to guide motor learning. Here we have exploited the temporal specificity of learning in smooth pursuit eye movements and the well-defined anatomical structure of the neural circuit for pursuit to identify a part of sensory cortex that provides instructive signals for motor learning in monkeys. We show that electrical microstimulation in the motion-sensitive middle temporal area (MT) of extrastriate visual cortex instructs learning in smooth eye movements in a way that closely mimics the learning instructed by real visual motion. We conclude that MT provides instructive signals for motor learning in smooth pursuit eye movements under natural conditions, suggesting a similar role for sensory cortices in many kinds of learned behaviors.
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