Topic: stereotyped movements

Motor skills underlie much of what we do, from tying shoes to serving a volleyball. A hallmark of skills is a transition over learning, from variable behavior to precise and stereotyped movements. This change in motor variability must be flexibly, but tightly, regulated: while necessary to explore the motor space to find rewarded solutions, it impairs peak performance. However, how variability regulation is implemented in the mammalian brain remains unclear. The basal ganglia have been implicated, and a transition from dorsomedial striatum (DMS), mediating variable behavior, to dorsolateral st