My lab has been studying the mechanisms by which the motor cortex contributes to motor learning. I will share some of our latest, unpublished sets of results. First, I will present evidence that precise, learned activity patterns in the primary motor cortex (M1) is causally related to the generation of learned movements. By two-photon optogenetic stimulation combined with two-photon calcium imaging, we find that the learned activity pattern in M1 can drive learned movements when artificially induced. Further, an appropriate preparatory network state in M1 and a precise input to M1 are both critical for generating the learned activity. Second, I will describe how the inputs from the thalamus are critical for initiating the dynamics in the motor cortex to execute learned movements. Third, I will describe the synaptic plasticity rules that these neurons employ to generate the learned circuit within M1.