Ever found yourself saying things like “oh, it’s muscle memory” to your clients (or self)? Or wondering why you poke yourself in the gums with your toothbrush? Our brains have a complex and efficient way of storing short-cuts to actions that we make frequently through a wonderful thing called ‘motor learning’.
Dive quickly into any information on the topic online or in text-books and it’s easy to get overwhelmed by phrases like ‘implicit and explicit’, ‘pre-cognitive, associative and autonomic’ and ‘feed forward / feed back’. But don’t panic, we are going to walk you through the fundamentals and make the case for learning about motor learning if you work in movement, exercise or rehab. Or – like me – you just find that kind of stuff interesting ?
Babies and brain damage.
The simplest way to think about what happens when we go through the process of motor learning is to imagine the neural networks (or learned experiences) of a brand new brain. Our brains develop with an area for controlling our muscles – called the motor cortex. This is a headband-like zone from ear to ear that sends out signals down the spinal cord requesting the body’s muscles to move. So, if you bend your arm it’s because your bicep (and some other bits) got stimulated to contract because it got zapped by a motor neuron (nerve cell) that got fired up by a signal from your motor cortex.
Sounds extremely straightforward.
Baby wants thumb in mouth. Baby’s brain learns that signals from the ‘bicep’ area of the motor cortex make that happen quite well. Babies brain learned something it can reuse next time it has the thought ‘I want my thumb in my mouth’.
But here’s the thing. Even that simple movement actually involves careful and coordinated stimulation and relaxation of a gazillion individual neurons to control the power and speed of the muscles that bend the elbow and the muscles that stop the elbow being bent (the triceps and other elbow extenders). Without this careful coordination of movement, baby gets frustrated because the thumb missed the mouth, didn’t get close enough or maybe bashed into baby’s face.
Phew. That’s a lot. We’ll get to the brain damage later, but it was a good heading, right?
Phases of Motor Learning
So actually the brain creates short cuts. The first time we make a new movement, it takes a lot of focused brain activity to get it right. We can’t keep doing other things at the same time, our brain needs to dedicate most of it’s effort to making the movement, getting feedback from the eyes and other senses on how successful it has been so far, tweaking the signals to the muscles. No surprise then that this early part of learning new or unfamiliar movements is called the cognitive phase (‘cognitive’ as in cognition or thinking).
During the cognitive phase, it’s not just the brain that needs to practise sending the signals. The neurons that carry the signals may need time to develop or the muscles and other soft tissues might need to adapt to the extra work.
During the cognitive phase you can expect to make a lot of mistakes, make awkward movements, be unsteady. It’s time to be patient and to let your body and mind adapt to the new things you are asking it to do.
‘Look Mum, no hands’
OK. Let’s move on from our ‘baby sucking thumb’ example and pick a slightly more progressed challenge. Baby is now child and is learning to ride a bike. They have understood the ‘what’ of cycling, can turn to pedals round and keep balanced and looking forward. That little brain is firing all sorts of signals to control the movement of the legs, make adjustments to the body position in response to signals from the eyes and ears (vestibular system) to correct their balance.
The mind and body go into fine tuning mode. Motor learning progresses from cognitive to associative and is less reliant on instructions from outside and feedback. Now it’s time for ‘feed forward’ to kick in – the brain’s activity is less focused on waiting to see if the messages it sent out were successful and begins to cleverly learn to predict what will need to be done to keep the movement or task efficient and effective.
Maybe our little tike gets so good on the bike that they can even keep going without using their hands to balance the handlebars. We’re so proud <3 At this point, most of the brain and body is still thinking about the act of cycling, or whatever movement or motor activity is going on, there’s little free capacity for other stuff.
Downhill skiing while sipping a G&T
Eventually you can get good enough at a complex movement that it the learning stage is described as autonomous. This is credited as the ultimate stage in motor learning. Little baby has graduated from the school of life and is out getting trolleyed on the slopes with enough experience of both things that they can do them without much thought, both skiing and drinking cocktails are tasks so familiar both can be done at the same time.
Not relatable? Ah well, then let’s take walking. Walking is an extremely complex motor function. Perhaps one day I’ll have the patience to spell out all the joint movements and motor activity it takes just to complete one step, let alone lots of them over uneven ground in high heels while texting, but for now take my word for it: Walking is one of the most complex motor functions there is. And yet most of us are lucky enough to do it day in day out without even using much of our brain to do it.
And all new skills start out as thumb-sucking. Only with repetition, relevance and fully functional neural circuitry can we progress from newbie to maestro. Over time and practice and positive experience our smart little brains create ‘motor patterns’, a sort of short-cut key for complex movements, so that we don’t need to use as much of our brain’s activity to do the task. Baby only needs to want to suck their thumb, child only needs to get on the bike to ride it, adult can happily drink while skiing, or something. We can talk and walk, climb and daydream, type and think. We can sit upright and eat without thinking about how not to fall off the chair. Clever old brains.
Motor patterns are not muscle memory.
Sorry, I just don’t believe in muscle memory. Everything I’ve learned, and I’m happy to learn more, indicates that there are easily run triggers for complex movements that can be created in the brain’s tissues. I’ve seen or read nothing that suggests individual muscles and their combined muscle fibers are capable of ‘remembering’ a movement or specific pattern of contraction. I do believe that the neurons that stimulate the muscles can increase, can become easier to trigger, can be more efficient with repeated use. I do believe that muscle tissue can adapt to be better at quick powerful contractions or slow sustained activity, and that lack of use can result in challenges in mobility and active movement in the muscles etc. But, for me, that still doesn’t add up to a memory for the kind of complex, coordinated movement that keeps me upright and gliding downhill on snow while sipping from a glass with ice and a slice. Yes, my muscles can more or less prepared for something my motor cortex and motor neurons ask of them, but they can’t ‘remember’ doing it.
The brain damage bit
Why does this matter to me? Well, because I’m interested in helping people move well and love the way they move and where they are at. I’m interested in supporting people to recover from injury and use their bodies in ways that are possible and efficient and ambitious. To do that I have to understand what part of the person to work with. It’s clear that if I have a client (and I have) who has suffered a stroke that has affected their motor cortex (the bit in their brain), the path to recovering their walking is going to be different to a client who has degeneration in their motor neurons (the bits that fire up the muscle fibres) and different again from someone who has been injured or inactive and needs to develop their muscle fibres. They all need to walk. One needs to develop or reconnect with motor patterns through a process of motor learning, one needs to create new alternative motor patterns because the old one’s aren’t going to cut it (the connection to the muscles is lost), and one needs to work on strength and conditioning with the motor patterns that are already there and intact.
A few more things about motor learning.
1 – it can be lost
As in the examples above, damage to the brain can result in damage to the cells that are involved in the motor pattern for any movement. All or part of the motor pattern could be affected.
2 – it can be recovered
Brain and neural tissue is amazing and resourceful. Relearning from scratch patterns that used to be functioning is possible for some. Learning new patterns to complete movements (e.g. walking, skiing) is also possible for some.
3 – it can fail
Even when a motor pattern is ‘working’ it can fail. Distraction, stress, and anything else that can affect the brain’s activity can affect parts of the brain that are involved in executing a motor pattern. Like when you are dreaming of the delicious guy at work and your spill your tea down your face and miss your mouth ?
4 – it isn’t all at once
The way motor learning is described as three separate steps can be misleading because not all parts of the movement will be learned at the same rate – for example if part of the movement is often used in another motor pattern, it might be easier to integrate this bit, but a new movement that might need time to develop new neuromuscular control might lag behind. Like all things, everyone is different in every way on every day, so patience is helpful. And breaking complex movements into separate parts can help, but make sure to combine them as well or it won’t all end up in the same pattern!
{ref: Kal, E., Winters, M., van der Kamp, J., Houdijk, H., Groet, E., van Bennekom, C. and Scherder, E., 2016. Is Implicit Motor Learning Preserved after Stroke? A Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis. PLOS ONE, 11(12), p.e0166376.]
Hope this explanation of how I understand motor learning and use it in practice is helpful. If you would like to know more or to work with Bloom Holistic Therapy please get in touch x