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Abstract

The acquisition of novel motor skills is a fundamental process of lifelong learning and
crucial for everyday behaviour. Performance gains acquired by training undergo a
transition from an initially labile state to a state that is progressively robust towards
interference, a phenomenon referred to as motor consolidation. Previous work has
demonstrated that the primary motor cortex (M1) is a neural key region for motor
consolidation. However, it remains unknown whether physiological processes
underlying post-training motor consolidation in M1 are active already during an
ongoing training phase or only after completion of the training. We examined whether
10 Hz interleaved repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (i-rTMS) of M1 during
rest periods between active motor training in an explicit motor learning task affects
post-training offline consolidation. Relative to i-rTMS to the vertex (control region), irTMS
to the M1hand area of the non-dominant hand facilitated post-training
consolidation assessed 6 hours after training without affecting training performance.
This facilitatory effect generalized to delayed performance of the mirror-symmetric
sequence with the untrained (dominant) hand. These findings indicate that posttraining
consolidation can be facilitated independently from training-induced
performance increments and suggest that consolidation is initiated already during
offline processing in short rest periods between active training phases.