In search of the engram, 2017

Based on evidence from lesion and imaging studies, some authors have suggested that the 'motor engram' - a representation underlying skillful behavior - becomes more localized with learning. We critically review the evidence in favor of this view pointing out several caveats with the interpretation, most of which have been raised in Karl Lashley's classical paper from 1950. We argue that motor skills are likely not stored in a single area, but are instead encoded across multiple representations in both cortical and subcortical areas. To better understand these distributed neural changes with learning, we need a richer description of skilled performance and testable process models of skill acquisition.