Muscle memory

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For the term "muscle memory" as related to strength training, see Muscle memory (strength training).



Movement and motor learning[edit]

Movement is a critical part of one's life, and it is a major component of human evolutionary development. It has been suggested that our developed cognitive capacities evolved so we could make movements essential to our survival. For example, cognitive abilities evolved so we could use tools, build shelter, and hunt for animals.[citation needed]

The origins of research for the acquisition of motor skills stem from philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle and Galen. Friedrich Bessel is a philosopher who is especially noteworthy, as he was among the first to empirically observe motor learning. Bessel tried to observe the difference in his colleagues with the method in which they recorded the transit time of stars.[2] After the break from tradition of the pre-1900s view of introspection, psychologists emphasized research and more scientific methods in observing behaviours.[3] Thereafter, numerous studies exploring the role of motor learning were conducted. Such studies included the research of handwriting, and various practice methods to maximize motor learning.[2]


The retention of motor skills, now referred to as muscle memory, also began to be of great interest in the early 1900s. Most motor skills are thought to be acquired through practice; however, mere observation of the skill has led to learning as well.[4] Research suggests we do not start off with a blank slate with regard to motor memory although we do learn most of our motor memory repertoire during our lifetime.[5] Movements such as facial expressions, which are thought to be learned, can actually be observed in children who are blind; thus there is some evidence for motor memory being genetically pre-wired.[5]

In the early stages of empirical research of motor memory Edward Thorndike, a leading pioneer in the study of motor memory, was among the first to acknowledge learning can occur without conscious awareness.[6] One of the earliest and most notable studies regarding the retention of motor skills was by Hill, Rejall, and Thorndike, who showed savings in relearning typing skills after a 25 year period with no practice.[2] Findings related to the retention of learned motor skills have been continuously replicated in studies, suggesting that through subsequent practice, motor learning is stored in the brain as memory. This is why performing skills such as riding a bike or driving a car are effortlessly and 'subconsciously' executed, even if someone had not performed these skills in a long period of time.[2]


Motor behavior[edit]


Muscle memory encoding[edit]

The neuroanatomy of memory is widespread throughout the brain; however, the pathways important to motor memory are separate from the medial temporal lobe pathways associated with declarative memory.[8] As with declarative memory, motor memory is theorized to have two stages: a short-term memory encoding stage, which is fragile and susceptible to damage, and a long-term memory consolidation stage, which is more stable.[9]




Muscle memory consolidation[edit]



Strength training and adaptations[edit]

When participating in any sport, new motor skills and movement combinations are frequently being used and repeated. All sports require some degree of strength, endurance training, and skilled reaching in order to be successful in the required tasks. Muscle memory related to strength training probably involves elements of both motor learning, described below, and long-lasting changes in the muscle tissue.

Evidence has shown that increases in strength occur well before muscle hypertrophy, and decreases in strength due to detraining or ceasing to repeat the exercise over an extended period of time precede muscle atrophy.[13] To be specific, strength training enhances motor neuron excitability and induces synaptogenesis, both of which would help in enhancing communication between the nervous system and the muscles themselves.[13]

A navy man performs strength training exercises.

However, neuromuscular efficacy is not altered within a two-week time period following cessation of the muscle usage; instead, it is merely the neuron's ability to excite the muscle that declines in correlation with the muscle's decrease in strength.[14] This confirms that muscle strength is first influenced by the inner neural circuitry, rather than by external physiological changes in the muscle size.



Reorganization of motor maps within the cortex are not altered in either strength or endurance training. However, within the motor cortex, endurance induces angiogenesis within as little as three weeks to increase blood flow to the involved regions.[13] In addition, neurotropic factors within the motor cortex are upregulated in response to endurance training to promote neural survival.[13]


Whether strength or endurance related, it is plausible that the majority of motor movements would require a skilled moving task of some form, whether it be maintaining proper form when paddling a canoe, or bench pressing a heavier weight. Endurance training assists the formation of these new neural representations within the motor cortex by up regulating neurotropic factors that could enhance the survival of the newer neural maps formed due to the skilled movement training.[13] Strength training results are seen in the spinal cord well before any physiological muscular adaptation is established through muscle hypertrophy or atrophy.[13] The results of endurance and strength training, and skilled reaching, therefore, combine to help each other maximize performance output.

Fine motor memory[edit]


Music memory[edit]

Bimanual synchronized finger movements play an essential role in piano playing.
Playing the piano requires complex actions

Fine motor skills are very important in playing musical instruments. It was found that muscle memory is relied on when playing the clarinet, specifically to help create special effects through certain tongue movements when blowing air into the instrument.[21] Memorizing is done by muscles as a note is seen and recalled, its auditory pair is learned and is matched by fingers movements (a fine motor skill).[22] When reproducing a motor action, you must have previous experience with it to memorize set actions. If there is no previous experience there will be no mental image of the motion, and therefore no actual movement.[22]

Certain human behaviours, especially actions like the finger movements in musical performances, are very complex and require many interconnected neural networks where information can be transmitted across multiple brain regions.[23] It has been found that there are often functional differences in the brains of professional musicians, when compared to other individuals. This is thought to reflect the musician's innate ability, which may be fostered by an early exposure to musical training.[23] An example of this is bimanual synchronized finger movements, which play an essential role in piano playing. It is suggested that bimanual coordination can come only from years of bimanual training, where such actions become adaptations of the motor areas.[24] When comparing professional musicians to a control group in complex bimanual movements, professionals are found to use an extensive motor network much less than those non-professionals.[24] This is because professionals rely on a motor system that has increased efficiency, and, therefore, those less trained have a network that is more strongly activated.[24] It is implied that the untrained pianists have to invest more neuronal activity to have the same level of performance that is achieved by professionals.[24] This, yet again, is said to be a consequence of many years of motor training and experience that helps form a fine motor memory skill of musical performance.

It is often reported that, when a pianist hears a well-trained piece of music, synonymous fingering can be involuntarily triggered.[23] This implies that there is a coupling between the perception of music and the motor activity of those musically trained individuals.[23] Therefore, one's muscle memory in the context of music can easily be triggered when one hears certain familiar pieces. Overall, long-term musical fine motor training allows for complex actions to be performed at a lower level of movement control, monitoring, selection, attention, and timing.[24] This leaves room for musicians to focus attention synchronously elsewhere, such as on the artistic aspect of the performance, without having to consciously control one's fine motor actions.[24]

Puzzle cube memory[edit]



Gross motor memory[edit]

Gross motor skills are concerned with the movement of large muscles, or major body movements, such as those involved in walking or kicking, and are associated with normal development.[25] The extent to which one exhibits gross motor skills depends largely on their muscle tone and the strength.[25] In a study looking at people with Down Syndrome, it was found that the pre-existing deficits, with regard to verbal-motor performance, has an impact on limiting the individuals transfer of gross motor skills following visual and verbal instruction to verbal instruction only.[26] The fact that the individuals could still exhibit two of the three original motor skills may have been a result of positive transfer in which previous exposure allows the individual to remember the motion, under the visual and verbal trial, and then later perform it under the verbal trial.[26]

Learning in childhood[edit]


Impact of Alzheimer's disease[edit]

It has been suggested that consistent practice of a gross motor skill can help a patient with Alzheimer's disease learn and remember that skill. It was thought that the damage to the hippocampus may result in the need for a specific type of learning requirement.[28] A study was created to test this assumption in which the patients were trained to throw a bean bag at a target.[28] It was found that the Alzheimer's patients performed better on the task when learning occurred under constant training as opposed to variable. Also, it was found that gross motor memory in Alzheimer's patients was the same as that of healthy adults when learning occurs under constant practice.[28] This suggests that damage to the hippocampal system does not impair an Alzheimer's patient from retaining new gross motor skills, implying that motor memory for gross motor skills is stored elsewhere in the brain.



Consolidation deficit[edit]


Dysgraphia for the alphabet[edit]


This patient was diagnosed with a pure form of dysgraphia of letters, meaning she had no other speech or reading impairments.[29] Her impairment was specific to letters in the alphabet. She was able to copy letters from the alphabet, but she was not able to write these letters.[29] She had previously been rated average on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale's vocabulary subtest for writing ability comparative to her age before her diagnosis.[29] Her writing impairment consisted of difficulty remembering motor movements associated with the letters she was supposed to write.[29] She was able to copy the letters, and also form images that were similar to the letters.[29] This suggests that dysgraphia for letters is a deficit related to motor memory.[29] Somehow there is a specific portion of the brain related to writing letters, which is dissociated from copying and drawing letter-like items.

Sensory motor amnesia[edit]

Sensory motor amnesia (SMA) occurs when the portions of the nervous system responsible for involuntary or automatic movement, such as the spinal cord, take indefinite persistent control of movements that are normally under the person's voluntary, conscious control. As described by Thomas Hanna in his book Somatics: Reawakening the Mind's Control of Movement, Flexibility, and Health, SMA develops by habituation and the repeated execution of a movement pattern.[30]

See also[edit]


  1. ^ a b c d e Krakauer, J.W., & Shadmehr, R. (2006). Consolidation of motor memory. Trends in Neurosciences, 29: 58-64.
  2. ^ a b c d Lee, D.T., & Schmidt, A.R. (2005). Motor Control and Learning: A Behavioural Emphasis. (4th ed). Windsor, ON: Human Kinetics
  3. ^ Adams, A.J. (1987). Historical Review and Appraisal of Research on the Learning, Retention, and Transfer of Human Motor Skills. Psychological Bulletins, 101(1), 41-74
  5. ^ a b Flanagan, R.J.; Ghahramani, Z.; Wolpert, M.D. (2001). "Perspectives and Problems in Motor Learning". Trends in Cognitive Sciences 5 (11): 487–494. 
  6. ^ Shanks, D.R.; St; John, M.F. (1994). "Characteristics of Dissociable Human Learning Systems". Behavioural and Brain Sciences 17 (3): 367–447. doi:10.1017/s0140525x00035032. 
  7. ^ a b Shadmehr, R; Holcomb, HH (1997). "Neural correlates of motor memory consolidation". Science 227: 821–25. 
  9. ^ Atwell, P.; Cooke, S.; Yeo, C. (2002). "Cerebellar function in consolidation of motor memory". Neuron 34: 1011–1020. 
  10. ^ Boyden, E.; Katoh, A.; Raymond, J. (2004). "Cerebellum-dependent learning: the role of multiple plasticity mechanisms". Annu. Rev. Neurosci 27: 581–609. doi:10.1146/annurev.neuro.27.070203.144238. 
  11. ^ a b c Ma, L., et al,. (2010). Changes in regional activity are accompanied with changes in inter-regional connectivity during 4 weeks motor learning. Brain Res. doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2009.12.073
  12. ^ Packard, M.; Knowlton, B. (2002). "Learning and memory functions of the basal ganglia. Annu. Rev". Neuroscience 25: 563–93. 
  13. ^ a b c d e f g Adkins, DeAnna L.; Boychuck, Jeffery (2006). "Motor training induces experience specific patterns of plasticity across motor cortex and spinal cord". Journal of Applied Physiology 101: 1776–1782. doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.00515.2006. 
  14. ^ Deschenes Michael R., Giles Jennifer A. 2002. Neural factors account for strength decrements observed after short-term muscle unloading. The American Journal of Physiology - Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology 282: R578-R583.
  15. ^ a b Bruusgaard, J. C., et al. "Myonuclei acquired by overload exercise precede hypertrophy and are not lost on detraining." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107.34 (2010): 15111-15116.
  16. ^ Karni, Avi, Meyer, Gundela. 1998. The acquisition of skilled motor performance: Fast and slow experience-driven changes in primary motor cortex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 861-868.
  17. ^ Xu, Tonghui, Perlik, Andrew J. 2009. Rapid formation and selective stabilisation of synapses for enduring motor memories. Nature. 915-20.
  18. ^ Kleim Jerrery, L.; Hogg Theresa, M. (2004). "Cortical Synaptogenesis and Motor Map Reorganization Occur during Late, But not Early, Phase of Motor Skill Learning". The Journal of Neuroscience 24: 629–633. doi:10.1523/jneurosci.3440-03.2004. 
  19. ^ a b Dowell, L. R., Mahone, E. M., & Mostofsky, S. H. (2009). Associations of postural knowledge and basic motor skill with dyspraxia in autism: Implication for abnormalities in distributed connectivity and motor learning. Neuropsychology, 23, 563-570.
  20. ^ Straker, L., Pollock, C., & Maslen, B. (2009). Principles for the wise use of computers by children. Ergonomics [Ergonomics], 52, 1386-1401
  21. ^ Fritz, C.; Wolfe, J. (2005). "How do clarinet players adjust the resonances of their vocal tracts for different playing effects?". Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 118: 3306–3315. doi:10.1121/1.2041287. 
  22. ^ a b Smith, T. L. (1896). "On muscular memory". American Journal of Psychology 7: 453–490. doi:10.2307/1411845. 
  25. ^ a b "Gross motor Skills – What are Gross Motor Skills". 
  26. ^ a b Meegan, S.; Maraj, B. K. V.; Weeks, D.; Chua, R. (2006). "Gross Motor Skill Acquisition in Adolescents With Down Syndrom". Down Syndrome and Practice 9 (3): 75–80. doi:10.3104/reports.298. PMID 16869378. 
  29. ^ a b c d e f Kapur, N.; Lawton, N. F. (1983). "Dysgraphia for Letters: a Form of Motor Memory Deficit?". Journal of Neurological Psychiatry 46 (6): 573–575. doi:10.1136/jnnp.46.6.573. 
  30. ^ Hanna, Thomas L. (1987). Somatics: Reawakening the Mind's Control of Movement, Flexibility, and Health. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0738209570.