Involvement of the cerebellum in sequential finger movement learning: Evidence from functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Whether the cerebellum is involved in voluntary motor learning or motor performance is the subject of a new debate. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we examined cerebellar activation in eight volunteers before and after an extended period of training. Activation volume on both sides of cerebellum after learning was significantly reduced compared to that before learning even under the same motor frequency. Remarkably, while motor frequency for the training sequence was significantly higher than the control sequence after 41 d of learning, activation in the cerebellum for both sequences, with respect to activation loci and volumes, was very similar. These results suggest that the cerebellum was involved in motor learning but not motor performance. Changes of cerebellar activation from training thus appear to be associated with learning but not with improvement on task performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]