Homeostatic and nonhomeostatic modulation of learning in human motor cortex

By Patric Jung and Ulf Ziemann

Introduction
- Motor learning is of crucial importance throughout life for acquisition of new skills and reaccquisition of formerly known but, attributable to brain lesion, lost skills (Sanes, 2003; Krakauer, 2006).

- There is now substantial evidence that many types of motor learning occur in the primary motor cortex (M1) and involve synaptic plasticity in the form of long-term potentiation (LTP) (Rioult-Pedotti et al., 2000; Monfils and Teskey, 2004).