An Introduction To Your Brain:
What if I told you that trying a new skill doesn’t just feel exciting, but it actually rewires your brain in a way? Think about the last time you learned something new and I’m not talking about a book you finished a week ago or gossip you learned from your friends at school. Your brain is built to learn valuable and beneficial skills, like learning to drive or to cook, maybe even learning survival skills.
How Neuron Connections Change While You Learn
Researchers studied how two types of neutrons communicate in the brain as you try to learn something new. The neurons will send information to different areas in your brain. However, the strength connection between the neurons only change if the experience was meaningful and significant. The neurons involved in this process are in the sensory cortex, a part of the brain that can also be found in cows or dogs as well. Because of this similarity, the findings could also help scientists a lot of animals learn too!
Mice Helped Researchers Understand Learning?
That’s right! Mice have helped researchers understand our brains! They were used as models to understand how learning happens.
The mice experienced three different scenarios and scientists observed how they responded:
- Group 1: Received an air puff with a reward
- Group 2: Received an air puff with a reward only sometimes
- Group 3: Received only an award without an air puff
Results of the experiment:
Observations had concluded that soon the mice began to ignore the puff of air they received on their whiskers and had no change in the neurons behavior. This shows that the brain can recognize when useful patterns exists and when there isn’t one to learn.
Conclusion:
Our brains change the most when we learn something meaningful and the neurons only strengthen the connections when an experience actually matters. This research really intrigued me and changed the way I see my brain in so many ways. Learning wasn’t just about retrieving and gaining knowledge but also about how my brain constantly rewired and geared itself to make sense of it.