Motor skill learning or procedural learning unlike declarative memory systems requires time and practice to assimilate into the brain. Neural mechanisms of skill learning are still incompletely understood. This is also because monitoring the same neural ensembles across extended practice (hours to days) is technically challenging. Novel tools to explore issues in sensorimotor learning are being developed and these are helping in extending our understanding of basic brain mechanisms underlying motor learning, and they are also helping in the development of new neurotechnology that can help in rehabilitation after a motor injury. This special issue includes articles that bring forward novel tools that can assess sensorimotor learning in a healthy intact brain, as well as an injured brain that is re-learning or recovering. These novel tools include- (i) behavioral approaches, such as animals or human subjects interacting with a joystick, or a manipulandum under natural conditions or under force-field adaptations, or tasks that involve ‘fine’ motor control (such as a dexterous reach-to-grasp task, where animals learn to grab a single food pellet by fine digit manipulation); (ii) detailed multi-joint kinematic evaluations: this is being accomplished through multi-camera monitoring of natural or learned motor behavior and using deep learning methods for automated pose estimations; and (iii) Novel methods of physiologic monitoring of brain circuits and optogenetic perturbations to unravel circuit-mechanisms that underlie processes of motor learning and recovery. This issue brings forward some such tools that are helping in increasing our understanding of neural mechanisms of motor skill learning.