BRAIN TRAIN... IT’S AS EASY AS RIDING A BIKE
SUDDENLY IT ALL CLICKS INTO PLACE... HOW BRAINS CHANGE AS NEW SKILLS ARE LEARNED
MASTERING a new skill such as learning to ride a bike can take hours of dedicated practice. You keep working at it and suddenly you get the knack and are off pedalling down the road.
Now, scientists have shed light on what happens in the brain as a new skill is acquired. They did this by mapping the changes that occur in the wiring of cell circuits and the performance of neurons. The finding could lead to a deeper understanding of how learning a skill alters parts of the brain and maybe even lead to new methods to improve learning.
The researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York trained mice to respond to a series of flashes and clicks by licking one of three waterspouts in front of them. They licked the middle spout to start the trial, one side to report a high-rate of clicking and flashing and the other side to report low flashing and clicking. When the mice made the correct decision, they received a reward.
The researchers then monitored the mice’s brains over several weeks using state-of-the-art imaging techniques, tracking the changes as the rodents improved at the task.
Over time, the neurons being used by the mice became more fine-tuned, only firing when the correct decision was made, and also starting to react more quickly.
When the animals were just beginning to learn, the neurons didn’t respond until around the time they made the choice.
But as they gained experience, the neurons responded much further in advance, indicating a much higher level of expertise.
‘We recorded the activity from hundreds of neurons all at the same time, and studied what the neurons did over learning,’ said CSHL associate professor Anne Churchland, the senior author of the study.
‘Nobody really knew how animals or humans learn the structure of a task and how the neural activity supports that. Most decision-making studies focused on the period where the animals are really experts.
‘But we were able to see how they arrive at the state by measuring the neurons in their brain all the way through learning.’
She added: ‘We found that in all the animals, their learning occurs gradually over about four weeks.
‘And we found that what supports learning is activity changes in a whole bunch of neurons.’