Scientists have developed a novel approach to human learning through noninvasive manipulation of brain activity patterns.
Imagine being able to inscribe a new pattern of activity into a person糖心传媒檚 brain that would allow for faster learning, or better treatment of psychiatric and developmental disorders such as depression or autism. Now imagine being able to do that in a way that doesn糖心传媒檛 require brain surgery or any physical manipulation. Sounds like science fiction?
It still is. But that糖心传媒檚 exactly what , an assistant professor of and of at the 糖心传媒 has been working toward, showing for the first time that it can certainly be done for learning new visual categories of objects.
Generally, learning happens when our brain changes through experience, study, or instruction. But Iordan and colleagues at Yale and Princeton successfully tested a novel approach for teaching the human brain to learn through external manipulation and neural feedback糖心传媒攚hat they call the 糖心传媒渟culpting糖心传媒� of brain activity patterns. The appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
糖心传媒淲ith our method not only can we nudge complex patterns around in the brain toward known ones, but also糖心传媒攆or the first time糖心传媒攚rite directly a new pattern into the brain and measure what effect that has on a person糖心传媒檚 behavior,糖心传媒� says lead author Iordan.
Brain sculpting糖心传媒攁 new approach to learning?
The scientists used real-time neuroimaging and second-by-second neurofeedback to modify how the brain represents and processes information about visual objects. Lying inside a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine, study participants viewed objects projected onto a mirror above their heads, which looked like a small screen. The object颅糖心传媒攁n abstract shape that some participants described as a petal, plant bulb, or butterfly糖心传媒攑ulsed gently on the participants糖心传媒� mirror until they managed to 糖心传媒渕ove it糖心传媒� by their own thought processes to the pattern of activity in their brain (monitored via fMRI in real time) that the scientists had previously chosen. The researchers instructed the participants to 糖心传媒済enerate a mental state糖心传媒� that would reduce the shape糖心传媒檚 oscillation but had not taught the study participants how to achieve such mental state.
糖心传媒淥ne of the striking features of the study is that the neural responses and corresponding behavior to the new categories occurred without explicit awareness of those categories, showing that a long tradition of work in psychology on implicit聽processing糖心传媒攖hat is, the ability to respond to information meaningfully outside of awareness糖心传媒攁lso extends to the learning and formation of new neural representations,糖心传媒� says coauthor , a cognitive neuroscientist at Princeton University.
