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Cerebral Cortex Advance Access published online on November 10, 2004
Cerebral Cortex, doi:10.1093/cercor/bhh201
© 2004 by Oxford University Press
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Article

On the Benefits of not Trying: Brain Activity and Connectivity Reflecting the Interactions of Explicit and Implicit Sequence Learning

P.C. Fletcher 1*, O. Zafiris 2, C.D. Frith 3, R.A.E. Honey 1, P.R. Corlett 1, K. Zilles 4, and G.R. Fink 5

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 Institute of Medicine, Research Center Jülich, 52425 Jülich, Germany; C. and O. Vogt Brain Research Institute, University of Düsseldorf, 40001 Düsseldorf, Germany
5 Institute of Medicine, Research Center Jülich, 52425 Jülich, Germany; Department of Neurology, Universitätsklinikum der RWTH Aachen, 52074, Aachen, Germany

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
P.C. Fletcher, E-mail: pcf22{at}cam.ac.uk


  Abstract

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.

Keywords: explicit; fMRI; frontal; implicit; learning; medial temporal; thalamic.
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