Working in Movement

I usually think of learning as pretty serious stuff. (This despite chronically associating education with the image of Groucho Marx as Professor Wagstaff in Horsefeathers.) Now comes news of learning in mice. These particular mice WERE at MIT when doing this learning, so perhaps this is still serious stuff.

What makes these mice notable is their learning ability hints at a plasticity of the adult brain greater than previously thought. The mice in question were subjects of a study at MIT, described briefly a news release on the MIT site.

The mice first learned to anticipate a small electric shock, some taught to associate the shock with a sound that preceeded it, and some with a visual stimulus. (Maybe scenes from Mark Brothers movies?) The mice exposed to the auditory stimulus learned very quickly that a shock was coming and responded accordingly. The visual mice took more trials to learn the response. But when the little rodents brains were altered to process visual stimuli with the auditory parts of their brains, they had an instant response. What this hints at is that "a brain structure responsible for an emotional response also can accept information from unusual sources and learn from a novel association."

There might be more to this than just surgically altered cringing mice. According to the release:

This research shows that even the adult brain is far more plastic, or adaptable, than previously believed. If extended to humans, this may mean that in the future, individuals with brain damage from aging, disease or injury may be able to have stimuli from the outside world routed in new ways to major brain structures—even those responsible for emotional responses and learning.

Professor Wagstaff would be impressed.