- When learning takes place, the effort an organism must exude to complete the task decreases
- Decreased "effort" is represented by changes to the electrical firing in the brain, and decreased metabolic activity (maintaining internal state), showing greater efficiency of completing tasks

Smith College

- As an organism continues to repeat the same movement over and over (such as grasping an object, or being able to point at an object) it will take less "effort" for the brain to initiate this movement
- This makes the organism more efficient in its ability to complete certain tasks
- This is evidence of an organism's ability to learn

Learning and the M1

Breedlove, S. & Watson, N. (2017). Behavioral neuroscience, eighth edition. Oxford University Press.

Behavioral Neuroscience 8th Edition

Changes to Activity Level in M1

- Previous scans of the human brain have shown an association between a larger M1 and increased learning 
- Specifically, when scans of the precentral gyrus (region of the brain closely associated with the M1) were taken, it showed a significantly larger gyrus in piano vs. non-piano players (especially in the "hand" region)

Changes to the Size of the M1

- When TMS stimulated M1 neurons acutely in human participants, it caused the thumb to move in a certain direction 
- When participants practiced moving their thumb in the opposite direction for 15-30 min, they saw the TMS caused their thumb to move that way instead, before going back to the direction it initially caused
- This shows learning in the M1

Learn Before

Related