Learning motor tasks is one of the fundamental attributes of mankind's experiences and is a collection of sensitive, cognitive and motor processes. Many of complex motor behaviors are performed based on a type of order or sequence. In the present study, the developmental differences in motor sequence learning were examined in three groups of children (age range 7,8,10 yr) and one control group of adults. For this purpose, the professional software of sequential stimuli, time record and response error was designed in C++. 48 right-handed participants (3 groups of 12 children and 1 group of 12 adults) who were healthy in their nervous system and had no prior experience of the mentioned task participated in this study. The intervention included 10 stages (8 stages for acquisition and 2 stages for retention). Performance was assessed by examining changes in accuracy and response coordination. The data were analyzed with factor analysis of variance and Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. The results showed a developmental progression in motor sequence learning in all groups. Interestingly, different developmental trajectories were observed in response accuracy and coordination. There was a significant difference in response accuracy between 7, 8-year-old groups and adults and 10-year-old groups in the acquisition phase but no significant difference was observed between adults and 10-year-old-group. For response coordination, adults responded to the stimuli more synchronously than all children and 10-year-old group responded more quickly than 6-year-old group. In the retention test, for response accuracy, 10-year-old group's performance was similar to adults and for response coordination, adults performed more synchronously than all groups but 7-year-old group had a delay in response coordination compared to the other groups. Overall, the differences observed in response accuracy and coordination was consistent with the hypothesis that accuracy may rely on cortical pathways that show their greatest maturation between ages of 7 and 10 whereas coordination may rely on subcortical pathways that continue to develop into young adulthood. The findings suggested that in one hand, various aspects of motor development influence motor learning and on the other hand during the learning of different components of a task, parameters that are more difficult with regard to motor control ( for example response coordination) are acquired and maintained in a longer process.

Background and Aim: Deficits in various areas such as pathways involved in motor learning and cognitive performance in schizophrenic patients is reportedly evident. The aim of the present study was to compare two types of implicit motor learning and explicit motor learning in patients with schizophrenia.Materials and methods: In the present comparative retrospective study, the sample included individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia (aged 25 to 40 years) by a psychiatrist at Behravan Rehabilitation Center and Shahid Zare Hospital in Sari City. The study sample consisting of 35 patients with schizophrenia divided into explicit learning (n=18) and implicit learning (n=17) groups who were selected via convenience sampling. Serial Reaction Time (SRT) software was used for data collection and SPSS (v.16) for data analysis running U Mann Whitney and Kalmvgraf -Smirnov tests.Results: The results of the current study showed that between the two groups of patients with implicit and explicit motor learning schizophrenia, the difference response time between the first and the eighth days was not statistically significant in the two first blogs (P>0.05). Also, the number of errors on the first day and changes in response-time were not significantly different between the two groups of patients with implicit motor learning and explicit motor learning schizophrenia (P>0.05). However, as for the number of errors in blogs, between the eighth blog of the first day and the second blog of the second day, there was statistically significant difference between explicit and implicit motor learning schizophrenia groups (P=0.04).Conclusion: The study found that, in terms of learning, patients with implicit motor learning schizophrenia were a little weaker than their counterparts in explicit motor learning schizophrenia.

Background: Cerebrovascular attacks have a devastating effect on the lives of their victims. The effects involve sensory-motor, cognitive, psychological as well as many other psychosocial damages. On the other hand, motor learning is a major aspect of human life, since many daily and lifetime skills are learned through a series of complex mechanisms in the nervous system. Although the most known disorder caused by stroke (i.e., the paralysis of limbs and muscles) is investigated thoroughly in past decades, there are few investigations focusing on other aspects of stroke pathology including motor learning. We have performed this study to delineate the consequences of a cerebrovascular attack on the process of motor learning. Patients and Methods: 40 subjects with anterior circulation stroke whose attacks were about two years ago (20 with left - and 20 with right-side lesion), were selected as the experimental group. 40 right-handed control subjects, matched according to sex, age and dominancy with the experimental group, were invited to attend the study. Both groups practiced a fast spatial-temporaltask in either augmented (100%) or faded (67%) feedback circumstances. Evaluation of acquisition, recall and reacquisition was performed after 198 trials. Results: Both groups showed significant improvement in performance accuracy and consistency in the acquisition phase and there was no significant difference among the performance patterns of the subjects during the acquisition, recall and Background: Cerebrovascular attacks have a devastating effect on the lives of their victims. The effects involve sensory-motor, cognitive, psychological as well as many other psychosocial damages. On the other hand, motor learning is a major aspect of human life, since many daily and lifetime skills are learned through a series of complex mechanisms in the nervous system. Although the most known disorder caused by stroke (ie., the paralysis of limbs and muscles) is investigated thoroughly in past decades, there are few investigations focusing on other aspects of stroke pathology including motor learning. We have performed this study to delineate the consequences of a cerebrovascular attack on the process of motor learning. Patients and Methods: 40 subjects with anterior circulation stroke whose attacks were about two years ago (20 with left - and 20 with right-side lesion), were selected as the experimental group. 40 right-handed control subjects, matched according to sex, age and dominancy with the experimental group, were invited to attend the study. Both groups practiced a fast spatial-temporaltask in either augmented (100%) or faded (67%) feedback circumstances. Evaluation of acquisition, recall and reacquisition was performed after 198 trials. Results: Both groups showed significant improvement in performance accuracy and consistency in the acquisition phase and there was no significant difference among the performance patterns of the subjects during the acquisition, recall and