Kernels of Motor Memory Formation: Temporal Generalization in Bimanual Adaptation

In daily life, we coordinate both simultaneous and sequential bimanual movements to manipulate objects. Our ability to rapidly account for different object dynamics suggests there are neural mechanisms to quickly deal with them. Here we investigate how actions of one arm can serve as a contextual cue for the other arm and facilitate adaptation. Specifically, we examine the temporal characteristics that underlie motor memory formation and recall, by testing the contextual effects of prior, simultaneous, and post contralateral arm movements in both male and female human participants. To do so, we measure their temporal generalization in three bimanual interference tasks. Importantly, the timing context of the learned action plays a pivotal role in the temporal generalization. While motor memories trained with post adaptation contextual movements generalize broadly, motor memories trained with prior contextual movements exhibit limited generalization, and motor memories trained with simultaneous contextual movements do not generalize to prior or post contextual timings. This highlights temporal tuning in sensorimotor plasticity: different training conditions yield substantially different temporal generalization characteristics. Since these generalizations extend far beyond any variability in training times, we suggest that the observed differences may stem from inherent differences in the use of prior, current, and post adaptation contextual information in the generation of natural behavior. This would imply differences in the underlying neural circuitry involved in learning and executing the corresponding coordinated bimanual movements.