[Functional brain plasticity associated with motor learning].

This review presents the results of studies carried out in our laboratory that aim to investigate, through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the brain plasticity associated with motor sequence learning, defined as our ability to integrate simple stereotyped movements into a single motor representation. Following a brief description of Doyon and colleagues' model (2002, 2005, 2009) of motor skill learning that has guided this work, we then describe the functional changes that occur at the different (rapid, slow, automatization) acquisition phases, and propose specific roles that the putamen, the cerebellum and their motor-related cortical areas, play in this form of motor behavior. Finally, we put forward evidence that post-training, non-REM sleep (and spindles in Stage 2 sleep, in particular) contributes to the consolidation of a motor sequence memory trace, and that increased activity within the striatum and/or the hippocampus mediates this mnemonic process.