Motor Learning Reduces Eye Movement Variability through Reweighting of Sensory Inputs

Motor learning can improve both the accuracy and precision of motor performance. We analyzed changes in the average trajectory and the variability of smooth eye movements during motor learning in rhesus monkeys. Training with a compound visual-vestibular stimulus could reduce the variability of the eye movement responses without altering the average responses. This improvement of eye movement precision was achieved by shifting the reliance of the movements from a more variable, visual signaling pathway to a less variable, vestibular signaling pathway. Thus, cerebellum-dependent motor learning can improve the precision of movements by reweighting sensory inputs with different variability.