Do We Really Learn From Our Mistakes?


	Do We Really Learn From Our Mistakes?

chestnut501

7-31-2009 7:59 PM

330 views

tags:

science, neuroscience, learning, brain, success, failure, brain-cells, response, neural-plasticity, mit

chestnut501 says:

MIT study sheds light on the brain’s ability to change in response to learning

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://www.clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/4354ebd5-f3b6-49d5-96de-91df084898df/61B44D92-AE81-4B48-BE1D-8C64AF8E27E7/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-07/miot-wwl072809.php" href="http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-07/miot-wwl072809.php" style="font-size: 11px;">www.eurekalert.org</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-07/miot-wwl072809.php"> If you've ever felt doomed to repeat your mistakes, researchers at MIT's 
Picower Institute for Learning and Memory may have explained why: Brain cells 
may only learn from experience when we do something right and not when we fail.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-07/miot-wwl072809.php">Mark Histed and Anitha Pasupathy have created for the first time a unique 
snapshot of the learning process that shows how single cells change their 
responses in real time as a result of information about what is the right action 
and what is the wrong one.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-07/miot-wwl072809.php"><P><P>"We have shown that brain cells keep track of whether recent behaviors were successful or not," </P><P></P>Miller said. Furthermore, when a behavior was successful, cells became more finely tuned to what the animal was learning. After a failure, there was little or no change in the brain — nor was there any improvement in behavior.</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-07/miot-wwl072809.php">The study sheds light on </blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-07/miot-wwl072809.php"> the brain's ability to change in response to experience. It has implications 
for understanding how we learn, and understanding and treating learning 
disorders.</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/61B44D92-AE81-4B48-BE1D-8C64AF8E27E7/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content9.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>