How do we learn to learn? New research offers an education
Study on mice reveals importance of ignoring distraction while learning


Date:
November 10, 2021
Source:
New York University
Summary:
Cognitive training designed to focus on what's important
while ignoring distractions can enhance the brain's information
processing, enabling the ability to 'learn to learn,' finds a new
study on mice.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Cognitive training designed to focus on what's important while ignoring distractions can enhance the brain's information processing, enabling
the ability to "learn to learn," finds a new study on mice.


==========================================================================
"As any educator knows, merely recollecting the information we learn
in school is hardly the point of an education," says Andre' Fenton,
a professor of neural science at New York University and the senior
author of the study, which appears in the journal Nature. "Rather than
using our brains to merely store information to recall later, with the
right mental training, we can also `learn to learn,' which makes us
more adaptive, mindful, and intelligent." Researchers have frequently
studied the machinations of memory--specifically, how neurons store the information gained from experience so that the same information can be
recalled later. However, less is known about the underlying neurobiology
of how we "learn to learn"--the mechanisms our brains use to go beyond
drawing from memory to utilize past experiences in meaningful, novel ways.

A greater understanding of this process could point to new methods to
enhance learning and to design precision cognitive behavioral therapies
for neuropsychiatric disorders like anxiety, schizophrenia, and other
forms of mental dysfunction.

To explore this, the researchers conducted a series of experiments
using mice, who were assessed for their ability to learn cognitively challenging tasks.

Prior to the assessment, some mice received "cognitive control training"
(CCT).

They were put on a slowly rotating arena and trained to avoid the
stationary location of a mild shock using stationary visual cues while
ignoring locations of the shock on the rotating floor. CCT mice were
compared to control mice. One control group also learned the same
place avoidance, but it did not have to ignore the irrelevant rotating locations.

The use of the rotating arena place avoidance methodology was vital
to the experiment, the scientists note, because it manipulates spatial information, dissociating the environment into stationary and rotating components.

Previously, the lab had shown that learning to avoid shock on the rotating arena requires using the hippocampus, the brain's memory and navigation
center, as well as the persistent activity of a molecule (protein kinase
M zeta [PKM?]) that is crucial for maintaining increases in the strength
of neuronal connections and for storing long-term memory.

"In short, there were molecular, physiological, and behavioral reasons
to examine long-term place avoidance memory in the hippocampus circuit
as well as a theory for how the circuit could persistently improve,"
explains Fenton.

Analysis of neural activity in the hippocampus during CCT confirmed the
mice were using relevant information for avoiding shock and ignoring
the rotating distractions in the vicinity of the shock. Notably, this
process of ignoring distractions was essential for the mice learning
to learn as it allowed them to do novel cognitive tasks better than the
mice that did not receive CCT.

Remarkably, the researchers could measure that CCT also improves how the
mice's hippocampal neural circuitry functions to process information. The hippocampus is a crucial part of the brain for forming long-lasting
memories as well as for spatial navigation, and CCT improved how it
operates for months.

"The study shows that two hours of cognitive control training causes
learning to learn in mice and that learning to learn is accompanied
by improved tuning of a key brain circuit for memory," observes
Fenton. "Consequently, the brain becomes persistently more effective at suppressing noisy inputs and more consistently effective at enhancing
the inputs that matter." The paper's other authors were: Ain Chung
and Eliott Levy, NYU doctoral students at the time of the research;
Claudia Jou a doctoral student at the City University of New York's Hunter College and the Graduate Center; Alejandro Grau-Perales and Dino Dvorak,
NYU postdoctoral fellows at the time of the study; and Nida Hussain,
a student at NYU's College of Arts and Science at the time of the study.

The research was supported by grants from the National Institutes of
Health (R01MH115304, R01NS105472, and R01AG043688).

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by New_York_University. Note: Content
may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Ain Chung, Claudia Jou, Alejandro Grau-Perales, Eliott R. J. Levy,
Dino
Dvorak, Nida Hussain, Andre' A. Fenton. Cognitive control
persistently enhances hippocampal information processing. Nature,
2021; DOI: 10.1038/ s41586-021-04070-5 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211110131631.htm

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