Our laboratory has a general interest in exploring brain mechanisms that underlie voluntary movement and motor skill learning.  Several brain regions, including those in the frontal and parietal lobes, the basal ganglia and the cerebellum, have involvement in various aspects of voluntary movements and motor learning.  For example, these areas appear to become engaged when humans learn and then consolidate new motor skills, such as learning to play a new piano piece.  We and others believe that one way that these brain areas mediate motor performance and learning is by communicating along interconnecting neural pathways. Currently, we study these problems with magnetic resonance imaging technology that assesses focal changes in blood flow, electroencephalography, and by assessing movement patterns while humans perform various movement tasks.