Cerebral Cortex Advance Access originally published online on November 10, 2004
Cerebral Cortex 2005 15(7):1002-1015; doi:10.1093/cercor/bhh201
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Cerebral Cortex V 15 N 7 © Oxford University Press 2004; all rights reserved
On the Benefits of not Trying: Brain Activity and Connectivity Reflecting the Interactions of Explicit and Implicit Sequence Learning
1 Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge CB2 2QQ, UK, 2 Institute of Medicine, Research Center Jülich, 52425 Jülich, Germany, 3 Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience, Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, UK, 4 C. and O. Vogt Brain Research Institute, University of Düsseldorf, 40001 Düsseldorf, Germany and 5 Department of Neurology, Universitätsklinikum der RWTH Aachen, 52074, Aachen, Germany
Address correspondence to Paul Fletcher, Box 189, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 2QQ, UK. Email: pcf22{at}cam.ac.uk.
Under certain circumstances, implicit, automatic learning may be attenuated by explicit memory processes. We explored the brain basis of this phenomenon in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study of motor sequence learning. Using a factorial design that crossed subjective intention to learn (explicit versus implicit) with sequence difficulty (a standard versus a more complex alternating sequence), we show that explicit attempts to learn the difficult sequence produce a failure of implicit learning and, in a follow-up behavioural experiment, that this failure represents a suppression of learning itself rather than of the expression of learning. This suppression is associated with sustained right frontal activation and attenuation of learning-related changes in the medial temporal lobe and the thalamus. Furthermore, this condition is characterized by a reversal of the fronto-thalamic connectivity observed with unimpaired implicit learning. The findings demonstrate a neural basis for a well-known behavioural effect: the deleterious impact of an explicit search upon implicit learning.
Key Words: explicit • fMRI • frontal • implicit • learning • medial temporal • thalamic
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