Switching learning on

Neurobiologist from the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research show how a network of neurons in hippocampus and cortex switches states to turn on and off learning in the adult. They further show how a stimulating environment promotes this switch, and thus learning. Their findings are published today in the renowned journal Nature and have far reaching implications also for diseases where learning and memory is impaired, such as Alzheimer's or dementia. Learning to ride a bike, to ski or swim: After many days and weeks of practice, trial and error, we usually master a skill and never forget how to do it. What is also common knowledge is that motivation and a supportive environment usually help: learning how to ski in the extreme cold will take much longer than on a sunny day with an understanding teacher. While we can observe these phenomena over and over again with many tasks at hand, we still don't understand fully, what mechanisms in the brain first enable learning and then allow the switch to the state where "we just know", and hardly forget. Pico Caroni and his team at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Basel could now show that networks of specific cells in the brain regions relevant for each particular type of learning, switch first to a "learning state" and then to a "learnt state", and how the environment and experience modulate these processes.