1. The cortex and basal ganglia play important roles in motor learning through changes in their neural networks. The cerebellum, thalamus, and motor cortex are involved in motor learning tasks. 2. The primary motor cortex generates movement signals and also plays a role in higher cognitive processes like attention, motor learning, and movement inhibition as shown through noninvasive brain stimulation techniques. 3. The supplementary motor area, pre-motor cortex, and basal ganglia are also involved in motor control and learning. The basal ganglia help mediate stimulus-response learning through incremental acquisition of associations.

1. CORTEX AND LEARNING
GROUP 2

2. LEARNING
● Any relatively permanent change in behaviour which occurs as a result of experience or
practice.
● Learning something new and creating a memory physically changes the structure of
the nervous system,altering neural circuits that participate in
perceiving,performing,thinking,planning and behaving.
● These changes in the nervous system are produced by encoding the new information.
ENCODING STORAGE RETRIEVAL

3. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

4. MOTOR LEARNING
Motor learning typically involves learning a novel sequence of motor behaviors over repeated trials. The
cerebellum, thalamus, basal ganglia, and motor cortex are involved across many different tasks.
CORTEX BASAL GANGLIA
It is based on changes of neural networks of the brain that enable a relatively permanent improvement
of performance, even though this may not always be manifest.

5. ROLE OF CORTEX IN LEARNING
PRIMARY MOTOR CORTEX
● The primary function of the motor cortex is to generate signals to direct the movement of the body.
● The predominant role of the primary motor cortex (M1) in motor execution is well acknowledged.
However, additional roles of M1 are getting evident in humans owing to advances in noninvasive brain
stimulation (NIBS) techniques. This review collates such studies in humans and proposes that M1 also plays
a key role in higher cognitive processes.
● The review commences with the studies that have investigated the nature of connectivity of M1 with other
cortical regions in light of studies based on NIBS. The review then moves on to discuss the studies that have
demonstrated the role of M1 in higher cognitive processes such as attention, motor learning, motor
consolidation, movement inhibition, somatomotor response, and movement imagery.
● Overall, the purpose of the review is to highlight the additional role of M1 in motor cognition besides
motor control, which remains unexplored.

6. SUPPLEMENTARY MOTOR CORTEX
● The contribution of the supplementary motor area (SMA) to the preparation of voluntary
movement has been revealed by various experimental methods.
● These include studies of movement-related cortical potentials recorded from surface and
subdural electrodes, extracellular recordings from SMA neurons in monkeys, studies of
regional cerebral blood flow, clinical studies of movement deficits associated with SMA
lesions and disruption of basal ganglia output to the SMA in Parkinson's disease.
● The SMA is found to be especially involved in self-paced, or well-learnt and predictable
movements which can be internally-determined. In Parkinsonian subjects, however, the
SMA is only involved in non-cued movements which must be internally-determined; this
may reflect both the reliance on external cues, and the deficit in using internal predictive
models to guide movement, which are associated with Parkinson's disease.

7. PRE-MOTOR CORTEX
● One area critical to motor control and learning of goal-oriented actions is the premotor cortex
(PMC).
● The PMC encompasses the anterior lip of the precentral gyrus, the posterior portion of the
middle frontal gyrus, and superior frontal gyrus on the superolateral surface of the brain,
corresponding to part of Brodmann’s cytoarchitectonic area (BA) 6.
● PMC is anatomically positioned between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) anteriorly
and M1 posteriorly. Functionally, this position within the motor hierarchy allows the PMC to
receive direct inputs from the DLPFC and posterior parietal cortex, process this information, and
project the output to M1 for movement execution.
● This functional specialization within the frontal brain areas is plastic such that these brain
regions show reorganization with learning, brain injury, and recovery from brain injury. For
example, because of its close proximity and similarities in function, PMC is thought to play a
significant role in reorganization following injury to M1.

8. BASAL GANGLIA
● Extensive evidence indicates a role for the basal ganglia, in particular the dorsal striatum, in
learning and memory. One prominent hypothesis is that this brain region mediates a form of
learning in which stimulus-response (S-R) associations or habits are incrementally acquired.
● Support for this hypothesis is provided by numerous neurobehavioral studies in different
mammalian species, including rats, monkeys, and humans.
● In rats and monkeys, localized brain lesion and pharmacological approaches have been used
to examine the role of the basal ganglia in S-R learning. In humans, study of patients with
neurodegenerative diseases that compromise the basal ganglia, as well as research using
brain neuroimaging techniques, also provide evidence of a role for the basal ganglia in habit
learning.

9. PERCEPTUAL LEARNING
● It is the process by which the ability of sensory systems to respond to stimuli is
improved through experience.
● According to APA, perceptual learning is the learning to perceive the
relationships between stimuli and objects in the environment or the differences
among stimuli.
● The primary function of this type of learning is the ability to identify and
categorize objects and situations.
● It involves long-term changes in perception.
● Perceptual learning is most commonly studied in vision and audition.
● Perceptual learning evolves with practice and time.
● Each of our sensory systems is capable of perceptual learning.
● We can learn to recognize objects by their visual appearance, the sound they
make, how they feel, or how they smell.
● Perceptual learning appears to be accomplished primarily by changes in the
sensory association cortex.
● That is, learning to recognize complex visual stimuli involves change in the visual
association cortex; learning to recognize complex auditory stimuli involves
change
in the auditory association cortex, and so on.

10. PREFRONTAL CORTEX
● The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is the cerebral cortex
covering the front part of the frontal lobe.
● The term ‘prefrontal’ was introduced by Richard
Owen.
● This brain region has been involved in planning
complex cognitive behavior, personality
expression, decision making, and moderating
social behaviour.
● Various areas of the prefrontal cortex have been
implicated in a multitude of critical functions
regarding speech production, language
comprehension, and response planning before
speaking.
● The basic activity of this brain region is
considered to be orchestration of thoughts and
actions in accordance with internal goals.
Prefrontal
cortex

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● The prefrontal cortex pathways are intricately linked with the limbic system
pathways that are related to stress responses.
● These pathways interpret stimuli on the basis of current and past
experience about whether an event is threatening or otherwise stressful.
● In adults and children, acute stress can lead to less-efficient prefrontal
cortex activity.
● Consciousness depends on the activity of the brain, particularly the
prefrontal cortex.
● The prefrontal cortex is involved in auditory cognition and receives
information from a wide array of auditory regions including multisensory
(STS) and unimodal auditory cortical regions.
● The frontal cortex supports concrete rule learning, while more anterior
regions along the rostro-caudal axis of the frontal cortex support rule
learning at higher levels of abstraction.
● The PFC is vital to the sense of self and others necessary for healthy
interpersonal relationships and decision making.
● Areas in the frontal lobe of the brain are thought to receive and use
perceptual information from various sensory areas to guide cognition and
behavior.

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The PFC has been divided into a number of functionally distinct regions, described
below.
● Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC): it is the topmost part of the PFC and is
considered to have overall management of cognitive processes such as
planning, cognitive flexibility, and working memory. the left DLPFC is
associated with approach behaviours and the right with more avoidant
behaviours.
● Orbitofrontal cortex (OFC): it is involved in the cognitive processing of
decision making; however, because of its close connection with the limbic
system, it is particularly associated with our ability to make decisions based
on emotional information.The OFC also plays a major role in forming social
attachments and regulating emotions, The left OFC is associated with positive
emotions, while the right OFC is associated with more negative emotions.
● Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC): This part of the PFC helps us make
decisions based on the bigger picture gathered from connections to the
amygdala, temporal lobe, ventral segmental area, olfactory system, and the
thalamus. It is also vital for personal and social decision making and the
ability to learn from our mistakes. Our capacity to make judgements and allow
our emotions to assist in decision making is mediated by this region of the
brain.

14. AUDITORY CORTEX
● Main auditory portion of the cerebral cortex resides in the temporal lobe,
close to the sylvian fissure.
● The human auditory cortex is situated on the supratemporal plane, and
comprises the superior two-thirds of the superior temporal gyrus.
● Ultimate target of the afferent auditory information is the auditory cortex.
● Primary auditory cortex or core is one of the 4 centres for auditory
processing; located on the superior surface of the temporal lobe; also
involved with integrating and processing complex auditory signals, which
include language comprehension.
● Majority of experimental studies of the various forms of auditory perceptual
learning have established the co-occurrence of neural and perceptual
changes, but have not established that the former are causally related to
the latter.
● Important form of perceptual learning in humans are those involved in
language acquisition.

16. Somatosensory cortex
● The somatosensory cortex is a region of the brain which is
responsible for receiving and processing sensory information from
across the body, such as touch, temp. and pain.
● Somatosensory cortex lies behind the motor cortex of the frontal
lobe.
● The sensory information received from the body including
sensations is then carried to the brain via neural pathways to the
spinal cord, brainstem and thalamus.
● The information is then projected to the somatosensory cortex,
which in turn has numerous connections with other brain areas in
order to process the sensory information.

17. Somatosensory pathways:
● Typically comprised of three neurons; primary, secondary & tertiary
❖ Primary neurons are the sensory receptors within the periphery of the
somatosensory cortex which are able to detect various stimuli such as
touch or temperature. The secondary neurons are located within the
spinal cord and brainstem and act as a relay station.
❖ Afferent pathways terminate in either the thalamus or the cerebellum.
❖ The tertiary neurons which are located within the thalamus &
cerebellum, will then project to the somatosens
-ory cortex.

18. Visual cortex
● Primary cortical region of the brain that
receives, integrates and processes visual
information relayed from retinas.
● It is in the occipital lobe of the primary
cerebral cortex, which is most prior to the
brain.
● Each hemisphere has its own visual
cortex, which receives information from
the contralateral eye.
● Primary purpose- receive, segment and
integrate visual information.
● Visual cortex is divided into 5 different
areas (V1 to V5).

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V1
From lateral geniculate
the information is
passed to the
V1/primary visual
cortex/ striate cortex
that which surrounds
calcarine sulcus.
Retina
Contralateral vision
Thalamus
Where it synapses in a
nucleus called the lateral
geniculate
Visual information

20. Extrastriate cortex
● A part of visual cortex that consists of multiple brain areas involved in
processing specific features of visual information.
● After the first level of analysis, the information is sent to extrastriate
cortex, that surrounds striate cortex
● Sub-regions of the extrastriate cortex, send the result of their analysis
to the next level of the visual association cortex through 2 streams:
➢ The ventral stream: object recognition
➢ The dorsal stream: location of an object
● Perceptual learning involves change in synaptic connections in the
visual association cortex.
● When the same stimulus is seen again & the same pattern of activity is
transmitted through the cortex these circuits become active again.
● This activity becomes base of perceptual learning.

21. RELATIONAL LEARNING
● Relational learning is basically complex perceptual learning
● It involves the learning the relationships among individual stimuli.
● Eg: if we hear a cat in a dark room, we start to imagine how it looks, how the fur feel
like, or how sharp its nail are.
● Spatial learning→perception of spatial location→our perception of the objects in the
room and their location relative to us tells us exactly where we are.

22. HIPPOCAMPUS
● Hippocampal formation consist of→Dentate gyrus (tooth like), CA fields (cornu ammonis),
subiculum,Pyramidal cells or place cells.
➢ It also receives spatial information from the parietal lobes through entorhinal cortex.
➢ Helps in memory encoding.
● Fornix
➢ Input→connects the subcortical regions and the hippocampal formation.
❖ Carries dopaminergic axons from ventral tegmentum, non androgenic axons from locus
coeruleus, sertogenic from ralph nuclei, acetylcholinergic axons from the medial septum.
➢ Output→connects the hippocampus to the mammillary body.

23. 3. The Limbic cortex of the medial temporal lobe:
● Entorhinal cortex→the axons terminate into the dentate gyrus, CA3 and CA1.
➢ Also has spatial receptive fields but not as efficient as place cells.
➢ Other cells→Grid cells,head direction cells and Border cells.
● Perirhinal and parahippocampal cortex→receives inputs from the amygdala, various
regions of the limbic cortex, and from all the sensory association cortex and sends it
to the entorhinal cortex.
4.· Consolidation→The efferent connections of the hippocampus with the regions of
the neocortex, which help in modifying and linking memories in ways that permits us to
remember the relationships among the element of the memories.
● Reconsolidation—where established memories can be altered or connected to newer
memories.

24. HIPPOCAMPAL NEUROGENESIS
● Production of new neurons→stem cells divide (subgranular zone) and give rise to
thousands of granule cells every day, which extends along the dentate gyrus.
● New neurons tend to die within a few weeks, but new learning helps in survival of these
neurons.
● The new neurons form connections with the dentate gyrus and CA3 .
I. Morris water maze experiment with rodents on spatial learning:
➢ The rodents (experimental group) were placed in a maze with visual cues and
filled with water mixed with milk powder(to make it opaque) which hides a
small platform .
➢ They released the rats different positions in each trial, they would swim until
the encountered the hidden platform and climbed onto it.
➢ After a few trials, the rats learned to swim directly to the platform irrespective
of the start point.
➢ To navigate around the maze the rats formed relation between their
stimuli(furniture, windows, doors etc.) →relational learning.
➢ (control group)Rats with hippocampal lesions when released in new position
on each trial, they would swim aimlessly until they encountered the platform
by luck.

25. II. Gould trained rats on two version of Morris water maze:
➢ Relational task training→ involves the hippocampus, doubled the no of newborn neurons
in the dentate gyrus.
➢ Stimulus response training→no involvement of the hippocampus, hence no
neurogenesis.
➢ Hence, he found that new neurons in the dentate gyrus participate in learning.
III. Tronel(2010) found that the maturation of dendritic trees of newborn neurons and their
integration into the neural circuits of the hippocampus was accelerated when animals were
trained on spatial learning task.

26. AMNESIA
● Caused due to damage to the hippocampus,either due to a disease or accident.
I. Anterograde amnesia:
● Where the person's past learning is intact but loses the ability to learn new information.
● Perceptual, motor, stimulus response learning ability is intact but complex relational
learning ability is lost.
● Found in Korsakoff’s syndrome, Alzheimer’s disease.
➢ Korsakoff’s syndrome is the result of chronic alcohol abuse/eating disorder/diet
deficiency, or side effect of chemotherapy. →these patients experience degeneration of
mammillary bodies.
II. Retrograde amnesia:
● When the persons is not able to remember past events.

27. STIMULUS-RESPONSE LEARNING
● A stimulus is anything that can trigger a physical or behavioural change. Stimuli
can be external or internal. An example of external stimuli is your body
responding to medicine. An example of internal stimuli is your vital signs changing
due to a change in the body.
● Stimulus-response learning is the ability to learn to perform a particular
behaviour when a particular stimulus is present.
● The behaviour could be an automatic response such as a defensive reflex or it
could be a complicated sequence of movements such as performing a piece of
music.
● Stimulus-response learning is divided into two major categories of learning:
1. Classical conditioning
2. Operant conditioning

28. Classical Conditioning
● classical conditioning involves automatic reflexes that do not have to be learned
and it is an association between two stimuli.
● It is a form of learning whereby a conditioned stimulus (CS) becomes associated
with an unrelated unconditioned stimulus (US) to produce a behavioural
response known as a conditioned response (CR).
● For example, when the force flow of air towards an eye, the eye will automatically
blink this response is called the unconditioned response. Because it can occur
without any special training. The stimulus that produces it is known as an
unconditioned stimulus.
● And normal eyeblink response can be a conditioned response.

29. Operant conditioning
● The second major class of stimulus-response learning is operant conditioning
which involves brand new behaviours that have been learned. And it is an
association between stimulus and a response. (such as tone and lever-pressing
behaviour.) Operant conditioning permits an organism to change its behaviour
according to the consequences of that behaviour.
● For example, when a behaviour is followed by favourable consequences
(a reinforcing stimulus), the behaviour tends to occur more frequently; when it is
followed by unfavourable consequences (a punishing stimulus), it tends to occur
less frequently. For example, a response that enables a hungry organism to find
food will be reinforced, and a response that causes pain will be punished.

30. ROLE OF AMYGDALA
● The amygdala is important in classically conditioned emotional responses.
● An aversive stimulus such as a painful foot shock produces a variety of
behavioural, autonomic, and hormonal responses: freezing, increased blood
pressure, secretion of adrenal stress hormones, and so on.
● After being processed by the auditory cortex, information about the CS (the
tone) reaches the lateral nucleus of the amygdala.
● This nucleus also receives information about the US (the foot shock) from the
somatosensory system.

31. ROLE OF BASAL GANGLIA
● operant conditioning entails the strengthening of connections between
neural circuits that detect a particular stimulus and neural circuits that
produce a particular response.
● The circuits that are responsible for operant conditioning begin in
various regions of the sensory association cortex, where perception takes
place, and end in the motor association cortex of the frontal lobe, which
controls movements

32. Role of the Prefrontal Cortex
● The prefrontal cortex provides important input to the ventral tegmental
area.
● The prefrontal cortex is generally involved in devising strategies,
making plans, evaluating progress made toward goals, and judging the
appropriateness of one's behaviour.
● Perhaps the prefrontal cortex turns on the reinforcement mechanism
when it determines that the ongoing behaviour is bringing the organism
nearer to its goals and that the present strategy is working.