Motor relearning principles

The process of learning or relearning a motor skill involves creating and developing a memory representation for the action in our brain. However, the memories we create for movements are not the same as the memories we have for past events; we do not remember every movement we make or routinely recall them, rather we remember how we have learnt to control our bodies in relation to our environment. We have evolved to do this because even seemingly simple skills such as picking up a cup require us to continuously modify and adapt our movement patterns to accommodate for example the size, shape, weight, location and contents of the cup along with our intention to lift, push, pull, shift or rotate it. Studying the complex process of skill learning has be conducted at different levels, from the functional and structural changes that occur in the brain to the changing behavior patterns that emerge over time as a person develops a coordinated movement pattern. In this chapter we are going to focus on changes in behaviour and how we can influence these by manipulating the learning experience or the environment.