Some say muscle memory happens in the muscles; others say it happens in the mind. And then there’s the spinal cord... Find out what this all means with Naomi as she shows us the science behind muscle memory and how your body can remember a movement that you haven’t done in years.

SOURCES

IMAGES:

Spinal column diagram:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Illu_vertebral_column.svg

Original:  Arcadian Vector:  Pixelsquid🎱, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

RESEARCH PAPERS:

Timestamps:

2:34 

“Learning from the spinal cord: How the study of spinal cord plasticity informs our view of learning”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3946174/

4:04 The Finger Tapping Study 

“Simultaneous brain-cervical cord fMRI reveals intrinsic spinal cord plasticity during motor sequence learning”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4488354/

This paper is referenced throughout the rest of the video

Other research papers referenced for this video:

“The basal ganglia and involuntary movements: impaired inhibition of competing motor patterns”

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14568805/

“Neural efficiency in athletes: a systematic review”

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/behavioral-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnbeh.2021.698555/full

“Spinal cord injury, dendritic spine remodeling, and spinal memory mechanisms”

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0014488611003062?via%3Dihub

“Learning from the spinal cord: how the study of spinal cord plasticity informs our view of learning”

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1074742713001445?via%3Dihub

“Can the spinal cord learn and remember?”

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1100/tsw.2008.106

“Learning with the Spinal Cord”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4488367/

“Chapter 3 – neuroplasticity in the spinal cord”

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B9780444529015000034

“Activity-dependent spinal cord plasticity in health and disease”

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11520919/

“Spinal cord plasticity in acquisition and maintenance of motor skills”

https://www.neurotechcenter.org/sites/default/files/misc/Spinal%20cord%20plasticity%20in%20acquisition%20and%20maintenance%20of%20motor%20skills.pdf

“Behavioral studies of spinal conditioning: the spinal cord is smarter than you think it is”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10391333/

“What can the spinal cord teach us about learning and memory?”

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20889964/

“Explicit memory, procedural learning and lexical priming in Alzheimer’s disease”

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010945213803279#:~:text=The%20data%20confirmed%20that%2C%20besides%20severe%20impairment,retain%20normally%20a%20motor%20skill%20in%20the