In Motor Learning, New Brain Connections Form Rapidly
Curt Welch
https://science.slashdot.org/story/09/11/29/2242211/In-Motor-Learning-New-Brain-Connections
In Motor Learning, New Brain Connections Form Rapidly
Science Daily has a report on research demonstrating directly that
[0]new connections begin to form between brain cells almost immediately
as animals learn a new task. A team lead by researchers at UC Santa
Cruz performed "...detailed observations of the rewiring processes that
take place in the brain during motor learning. The researchers studied
mice as they were trained to reach through a slot to get a seed. They
observed rapid growth of... synapses between nerve cells in the motor
cortex... The study used mice that had been genetically altered to make
a fluorescent protein within certain neurons in the brain. The
researchers were then able to use a special microscopy technique
(two-photon microscopy) to obtain clear images of those neurons near
the surface of the brain. The noninvasive imaging technique enabled
them to view changes in individual brain cells of the mice before,
during, and after the mice were trained in the seed-reaching task."
This seems to contradict just about everything Ray has been saying about
how the brain doesn't rewire itself, about how learning doesn't take place
in the cortex, and how all behavior is controlled by the stopping and
staring of genetically pre-wired MPGs.
When you learn a new task, the brain must reconfigure itself one way or the
other in a learning process. It's great to see these researchers are
developing non-invasive techniques for monitoring how the brain is actually
changing when learning is taking place because far more important that what
the circuit or "module" ends up being after learning, is how the system
managed to build it in the first place. That is, how the learning system
itself works.
--
Curt Welch http://CurtWelch.Com/
cu...@kcwc.com http://NewsReader.Com/
casey
> ...
> When you learn a new task, the brain must reconfigure itself
> one way or the other in a learning process. It's great to see
> these researchers are developing non-invasive techniques for
> monitoring how the brain is actually changing when learning
> is taking place because far more important that what the
> circuit or "module" ends up being after learning, is how the
> system managed to build it in the first place. That is, how
> the learning system itself works.
This has been going on for a long time with some of the great
work done with Aplysia showing how simple neural circuits are
changed by experience. I have used the insights in some of my
own learning networks.
The cortex I would suggest learns higher abstractions and these
abstractions control the learning taking place at lower levels.
What is learned depends where the learning is taking place.
JC
rs...@nycap.rr.com
> This seems to contradict just about everything Ray has been saying about
> how the brain doesn't rewire itself, about how learning doesn't take place
> in the cortex, and how all behavior is controlled by the stopping and
> staring of genetically pre-wired MPGs.
You are flaying and kicking a strawman. Axonal extension and
synaptogenesis are just part of present day mainstream neuroscience. I
never said they were not. And in particular, I never, ever said they
were not part of the construction of motor program generators. Nor
part of the adaptation of MPG's to the environment.
Without axonal extension and synaptogenesis, there is no way a
reasonable man can carry on a discussion of brain construction.
Ray
Curt Welch
> On Dec 1, 9:58=A0am, c...@kcwc.com (Curt Welch) wrote:
>
> > This seems to contradict just about everything Ray has been saying
> > about how the brain doesn't rewire itself, about how learning doesn't
> e
> > in the cortex, and how all behavior is controlled by the stopping and
> > staring of genetically pre-wired MPGs.
>
> You are flaying and kicking a strawman. Axonal extension and
> synaptogenesis are just part of present day mainstream neuroscience. I
> never said they were not. And in particular, I never, ever said they
> were not part of the construction of motor program generators. Nor
> part of the adaptation of MPG's to the environment.
>
> Without axonal extension and synaptogenesis, there is no way a
> reasonable man can carry on a discussion of brain construction.
>
> Ray
Straw men are fun to kick around every now and again! :)
zzbu...@netscape.net
>
Well, the medical jargon that the AI keeps spewing about the Visual
Cortex
is mostly why the educable people work on Digital Books, USB,
Desktop Publishing,
On-Line Publishing and Post Vacuum Tube Education.
And the that's incredible Pop Star Crescendos is why the educable
work
on Atomic Clock Watches, Light Sticks, HDTV, Home Broad, Blue Ray,
and Rapid Prototying, rather than nearly extinct automotive
manufacturing plants.
And as far as robotics go, UAVs, Self-Assembling Robots, GPS, Data
Fusion, Holographics,
and Multiplexed Fiber Optics, is mostly why the people who
understand Post Cell phone Robotics
work on.
>
> --
> Curt Welch http://CurtWelch.Com/