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Investigating peripheral visual processing in individuals with early auditory deprivation is a critical research area in the field of neuroscience, since it helps understanding the phenomenon of sensory adaptation and brain plasticity after sensory loss. Prior research has already demonstrated that the absence of auditory input, which is crucial to detect events occurring out of the central egocentric visual space, leads to an improved processing of visual and tactile stimuli occurring in peripheral regions of the sensory space. Nevertheless, no prior studies have explored whether such enhanced processing also takes place within the domain of action, particularly when individuals are required to perform actions that produce peripheral sensory outcomes. To test this hypothesis, we recruited 15 hearing (31 ± 3.3 years) and 15 early deaf adults (42 ± 2.6 years) for a neuro-behavioral experiment involving: 1) a behavioral task where participants executed a simple motor action (i.e., a button press) and received a visual feedback either in the center or in a peripheral region of the visual field, and 2) the electrophysiological recording of brain electrical potentials (EEG). We measured and compared neural activity preceding the motor action (the readiness potentials) and visual evoked responses (the N1 and P2 ERP components) and found that deaf individuals did not exhibit more pronounced modulation of neural responses when their motor actions resulted in peripheral visual stimuli compared to their hearing counterparts. Instead they showed a reduced modulation when visual stimuli were presented in the center. Our results suggest a redistribution of attentional resources from center to periphery in deaf individuals during sensorimotor coupling., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

EFL listening comprehension has been a stark challenge for language learners, but little is known about the combined effect of individual differences, such as working memory capacity, and metacognitive intervention. Thus, the present experimental study investigates the effect of metacognitive intervention on the listening performance and metacognitive awareness of high- and low-WMC EFL learners. For this purpose, Oxford Placement Tests were distributed among 120 male Iranian EFL learners, of which 94 were identified as intermediate. Then, backward visual digit span tests were administered to measure their working memory capacity. Based on the median of all scores, 80 learners were selected and randomly assigned to two experimental groups and two control groups each with 20 participants. Next, their performance on the International English Language Testing System and the Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire was measured before and after the 8-session metacognitive intervention. Results showed that high-WMC experimental learners had a higher gain with a large effect size in terms of listening performance compared with all the other groups. In addition, the experimental group learners reported the significantly higher use of the metacognitive strategies with a moderate effect size. Interestingly, low-WMC learners' listening performance and metacognitive awareness also improved as a result of the intervention. Our findings bear pedagogical significance in that individual differences in WMC should be considered more in both EFL language classes and the future line of research involving the metacognitive intervention., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Visual search usually improves with repeated exposure to a search display. Previous research suggests that such a "contextual cueing" effect may be supported even by aspects of the search display that participants have been explicitly asked to ignore. Based on this evidence, it has been suggested that the development of contextual cueing over trials does not depend on selective attention. In the present series of experiments, we show that the most common strategy used to prevent participants from paying attention to task-irrelevant distractors often results in suboptimal selection. Specifically, we show that visual search is slower when search displays include many irrelevant distractors. Eye-tracking data show that this happens, at least in part, because participants fixate on them. These results cast doubts on previous demonstrations that contextual cueing is independent of selective attention. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

This systematic review explored the impact of maternal immune activation (MIA) on learning and memory behavior in offspring, with a particular focus on sexual dimorphism. We analyzed 20 experimental studies involving rodent models (rats and mice) exposed to either lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or POLY I:C during gestation following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Our findings reveal that most studies report a detrimental impact of MIA on the learning and memory performance of offspring, highlighting the significant role of prenatal environmental factors in neurodevelopment. Furthermore, this review underscores the complex effects of sex, with males often exhibiting more pronounced cognitive impairment compared to females. Notably, a small subset of studies report enhanced cognitive function following MIA, suggesting complex, context-dependent outcomes of prenatal immune challenges. This review also highlights sex differences caused by the effects of MIA in terms of cytokine responses, alterations in gene expression, and differences in microglial responses as factors that contribute to the cognitive outcomes observed., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest None., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

During visuomotor learning, improvements in motor performance accompany changes in how people use vision. However, the dependencies between altered visual reliance and improvements in motor skill is unclear. The present studies used an online sequence learning task to quantify how changing the availability of visual information affected motor skill learning ( study 1 ) and how changing motor skill affected visual reliance ( study 2 ). Participants used their keyboard to respond to targets falling vertically down a game screen. In study 1 ( n = 49), the availability of visual information was altered by manipulating where the targets were visible on the screen. Three experimental groups practiced the task during full or limited vision conditions (when the targets were only visible in specific areas). We hypothesized that limiting visual information would reduce motor learning (i.e., the rate of improvement during training trial blocks). Instead, although participants performed worse during limited vision trials ( P < 0.001), there was no difference in learning rate ( P = 0.87). In study 2 ( n = 119), all participants practiced the task with full vision and their visual reliance (i.e., their performance change between full and limited vision conditions) was quantified before and after training. We hypothesized that with motor learning, visual reliance on future targets would increase, whereas visual reliance on the current targets would decrease. The results of study 2 partially support our hypotheses with visual reliance decreasing for all visual areas ( P < 0.001). Together, the results suggest changing motor skill alters how people use vision, but changing visual availability does not affect motor learning. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Previous research has established how people use visual information changes with motor learning. However, the dependencies of these two processes on each other are unclear. We find that limiting the availability of visual information degrades motor performance but not motor learning. We also find that motor learning reduces the impact of limiting the availability of visual information on motor performance. Together, these results suggest that how people use visual information depends on their motor skill.

For a reinforcement learning agent to finish trial-and-error in a realistic time duration, it is necessary to limit the scope of exploration during the learning process. However, limiting the exploration scope means limitation in optimality: the agent could fall into a suboptimal solution. This is the nature of local, bottom-up way of learning. An alternative way is to set a goal to be achieved, which is a more global, top-down way. The risk-sensitive satisficing (RS) value function incorporate, as a method of the latter way, the satisficing principle into reinforcement learning and enables agents to quickly converge to exploiting the optimal solution without falling into a suboptimal one, when an appropriate goal (aspiration level) is given. However, how best to determine the aspiration level is still an open problem. This study proposes social satisficing, a framework for multi-agent reinforcement learning which determines the aspiration level through information sharing among multiple agents. In order to verify the effectiveness of this novel method, we conducted simulations in a learning environment with many suboptimal goals (SuboptimaWorld). The results show that the proposed method, which converts the aspiration level at the episodic level into local (state-wise) aspiration levels, possesses a higher learning efficiency than any of the compared methods, and that the novel method has the ability to autonomously adjust exploration scope, while keeping the shared information minimal. This study provides a glimpse into an aspect of human and biological sociality which has been mentioned little in the context of artificial intelligence and machine learning., Competing Interests: This manuscript has not been published or presented elsewhere in part or in entirety and is not under consideration by another journal. We have read and understood your journal's policies, and we believe that neither the manuscript nor the study violates any of these. There are no conflicts of interest to declare. We have had no prior discussions with a BioSystems Editorial Board Member about the work described in the manuscript., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Learning words in the mother tongue is a fundamental lifelong skill that involves complex cognitive and neural changes. In adults, newly learned words affect the organization of the lexical-semantic network and, compared to words that have been in the lexicon for longer, they activate the same cortical areas, but more extensively and/or intensively. It is however still unclear (1) which brain and cognitive processes underlying word production change when infrequent/unknown words are compared before and after learning and (2) whether integrating newly learned words impacts word specific processes or has a broader impact on unlearned words. The present study aims to investigate the electrophysiological changes underlying the production of rare words induced by learning and the effect of learning on an unlearned list of rare words belonging to the same semantic categories. To this end, 24 neurotypical adults learned one of two matched lists of 40 concrete rare words from 4 semantic categories. EEG (electroencephalographic) recordings were acquired during a referential word production task (picture naming) of the learned and unlearned words before and after the learning phase. The results show that the production of rare word is associated with event-related (ERP) differences between before and after learning in the period from 300 to 800 msec following the presentation of the imaged concept (picture). These differences consisted in a larger involvement of left temporal and parietal regions after learning between 300 and 400 msec i.e., the time window likely corresponding to lexical and phonological encoding processes. Crucially, the ERP changes are not restricted to the production of the learned rare words, but are also observed when participants try to retrieve words of a list of semantically and lexically matched rare words that they have not learned. The ERP changes on unlearned rare words are weaker and suggest that learning new words induces boarder effects also on unlearned words., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Migrasome is a newly discovered organelle composed of small vesicular structures enclosed in membrane structures. Since its discovery in 2014, migrasome has attracted increasing attention in cell biology due to its critical role in multiple disease processes. Its pivotal role in various disease processes, including cell migration, intercellular communication, removal of damaged mitochondria, embryogenesis localization, immune cell chemotaxis, and virus transmission, underscores its significance in biological systems. With research on migrasome steadily increasing, it becomes a unique resource for undergraduate cell biology education. For deeper understanding of migrasome, we applied a bibliometric approach. Here we conducted a comprehensive analysis of migrasome research by retrieving relevant literature from databases such as Web of Science, Scopus, and PubMed using the keywords "migrasome" or "migrasomes." Employing CiteSpace software and Prism, we analyzed annual publication trends, identified core authors and institutions, assessed national contributions, examined keywords, and scrutinized highly cited literature related to migrasome research. This study presents a comprehensive overview of migrasome research, elucidating its literature characteristics, key contributors, research hotspots, and emerging trends. By shedding light on the current status and future trajectories of migrasome research, we aim to provide valuable insights for teachers in cell biology education. We propose for the integration of migrasome research into undergraduate curricula to enhance the understanding of cell biology among premedical, medical, and biomedical students, thereby fostering a deeper appreciation for the intricate mechanisms governing cellular behavior and disease processes., (© 2024 International Federation of Cell Biology.)

While the storage capacity is limited, accumulating studies have indicated that working memory (WM) can be improved by cognitive training. However, understanding how exactly the brain copes with limited WM capacity and how cognitive training optimizes the brain remains inconclusive. Given the hierarchical functional organization of WM, we hypothesized that the activation profiles along the posterior-anterior gradient of the frontal and parietal cortices characterize WM load and training effects. To test this hypothesis, we recruited 51 healthy volunteers and adopted a parametric WM paradigm and training method. In contrast to exclusively strengthening the activation of posterior areas, a broader range of activation concurrently occurred in the anterior areas to cope with increased memory load for all subjects at baseline. Moreover, there was an imbalance in the responses of the posterior and anterior areas to the same increment of 1 item at different load levels. Although a general decrease in activation after adaptive training, the changes in the posterior and anterior areas were distinct at different memory loads. Particularly, we found that the activation gradient between the posterior and anterior areas was significantly increased at load 4-back after adaptive training, and the changes were correlated with improvement in WM performance. Together, our results demonstrate a shift in the predominant role of posterior and anterior areas in the frontal and parietal cortices when approaching WM capacity limits. Additionally, the training-induced performance improvement likely benefits from the elevated neural efficiency reflected in the increased activation gradient between the posterior and anterior areas., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

This study examined the co-development of infant reaching and postural control across the transition to arms-free sitting at home. We observed infants with typical likelihood (TL; n = 24) and elevated likelihood (EL; n = 20) for autism at four biweekly sessions spanning the transition to arms-free sitting (infant age = 4.5-8 months at first session). At each session, infants sat on a pressure-sensitive mat with external support or independently, wore magneto-inertial sensors on both wrists, and reached for toys presented at midline. Analyses focused on characterizing and comparing control of sitting during reaching actions and standard kinematic metrics of reaching during Supported versus Independent Sitting. Although EL infants achieved arms-free sitting later than TL peers, there were no group differences on any measures. Across sessions, infants' control of the sitting posture during concurrent reaching movements improved in both contexts, though they were less stable as they reached when sitting independently compared to when sitting with support. A similar effect was apparent in the kinematics of reaches, with overall improvement over time, but evidence of poorer control in Independent relative to Supported Sitting. Taken together, these findings underscore the mutually influential and dynamic relations between emerging skills and well-established behaviors., (© 2024 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Procedural learning is the acquisition of motor and non-motor skills through a gradual process that increases with practice. Impairments in procedural learning have been consistently demonstrated in neurodevelopmental, neurodegenerative, and neuropsychiatric disorders. Considering that noninvasive brain stimulation modulates brain activity and boosts neuroplastic mechanisms, we reviewed the effects of coupling transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) with training methods for motor and non-motor procedural learning to explore tDCS potential use as a tool for enhancing implicit learning in healthy and clinical populations. The review covers tDCS effects over i. motor procedural learning, from basic to complex activities; ii. non-motor procedural learning; iii. procedural rehabilitation in several clinical populations. We conclude that targeting the primary motor cortex and prefrontal areas seems the most promising for motor and non-motor procedural learning, respectively. For procedural rehabilitation, the use of tDCS is yet at an early stage but some effectiveness has been reported for implicit motor and memory learning. Still, systematic comparisons of stimulation parameters and target areas are recommended for maximising the effectiveness of tDCS and its robustness for procedural rehabilitation., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Language experience confers a benefit to voice learning, a concept described in the literature as the language familiarity effect (LFE). What experiences are necessary for the LFE to be conferred is less clear. We contribute empirically and theoretically to this debate by examining within and across language voice learning with Cantonese-English bilingual voices in a talker-voice association paradigm. Listeners were trained in Cantonese or English and assessed on their abilities to generalize voice learning at test on Cantonese and English utterances. By testing listeners from four language backgrounds - English Monolingual, Cantonese-English Multilingual, Tone Multilingual, and Non-tone Multilingual groups - we assess whether the LFE and group-level differences in voice learning are due to varying abilities (1) in accessing the relative acoustic-phonetic features that distinguish a voice, (2) learning at a given rate, or (3) generalizing learning of talker-voice associations to novel same-language and different-language utterances. The specific four language background groups allow us to investigate the roles of language-specific familiarity, tone language experience, and generic multilingual experience in voice learning. Differences in performance across listener groups shows evidence in support of the LFE and the role of two mechanisms for voice learning: the extraction and association of talker-specific, language-general information that is more robustly generalized across languages, and talker-specific, language-specific information that may be more readily accessible and learnable, but due to its language-specific nature, is less able to be extended to another language., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Adolescence is characterized by a critical period of maturation and growth, during which regions of the brain are vulnerable to long-lasting cognitive disturbances. Adolescent exposure to nicotine can lead to deleterious neurological and psychological outcomes. Moreover, the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) has been shown to play a functionally distinct role in the development of the adolescent brain. CHRNA2 encodes for the α2 subunit of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors associated with CA1 oriens lacunosum moleculare GABAergic interneurons and is associated with learning and memory. Previously, we found that adolescent male hypersensitive CHRNA2 L9'S/L9' mice had impairments in learning and memory during a pre-exposure-dependent contextual fear conditioning task that could be rescued by low-dose nicotine exposure. In this study, we assessed learning and memory in female adolescent hypersensitive CHRNA2 L9'S/L9' mice exposed to saline or a subthreshold dose of nicotine using a hippocampus-dependent task of pre-exposure-dependent contextual fear conditioning. We found that nicotine-treated wild-type female mice had significantly greater improvements in learning and memory than both saline-treated wild-type mice and nicotine-treated CHRNA2 L9'S/L9' female mice. Thus, hyperexcitability of CHRNA2 in female adolescent mice ablated the nicotine-mediated potentiation of learning and memory seen in wild-types. Our results indicate that nicotine exposure during adolescence mediates sexually dimorphic patterns of learning and memory, with wild-type female adolescents being more susceptible to the effects of sub-threshold nicotine exposure. To understand the mechanism underlying sexually dimorphic behavior between hyperexcitable CHRNA2 mice, it is critical that further research be conducted., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Aim: Neural activity in the olfactory bulb (OB) can represent odor information during different brain and behavioral states. For example, the odor responses of mitral/tufted (M/T) cells in the OB change during learning of odor-discrimination tasks and, at the network level, beta power increases and the high gamma (HG) power decreases during odor presentation in such tasks. However, the neural mechanisms underlying these observations remain poorly understood. Here, we investigate whether serotonergic modulation from the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) to the OB is involved in shaping activity during the learning process in a go/no-go task in mice., Methods: Fiber photometry was used to record the population activity of DRN serotonergic neurons during a go/no-go task. In vivo electrophysiology was used to record neural activity (single units and local field potentials) in the OB during the go/no-go task. Real-time place preference (RTPP) and intracranial light administration in a specific subarea (iClass) tests were used to assess the ability of mice to encoding reward information., Results: Odor-evoked population activity in serotonergic neurons in the DRN was shaped during the learning process in a go/no-go task. In the OB, neural activity from oscillations to single cells showed complex, learning-associated changes and ability to encode information during an odor discrimination task. However, these properties were not observed after ablation of DRN serotonergic neurons., Conclusion: The activity of neural networks and single cells in the OB, and their ability to encode information about odor value, are shaped by serotonergic projections from the DRN., (© 2024 Scandinavian Physiological Society. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Prediction errors (PEs) function as learning signals. It is yet unclear how varying compared to repetitive PEs affect episodic memory in brain and behavior. The current study investigated cerebral and behavioral effects of experiencing either multiple alternative versions ("varying") or one single alternative version ("repetitive") of a previously encoded episode. Participants encoded a set of episodes ("originals") by watching videos showing toy stories. During scanning, participants either experienced originals, one single, or multiple alternative versions of the previously encoded episodes. Participants' memory performance was tested through recall of original objects. Varying and repetitive PEs revealed typical brain responses to the detection of mismatching information including inferior frontal and posterior parietal regions, as well as hippocampus, which is further linked to memory reactivation, and the amygdala, known for modulating memory consolidation. Furthermore, experiencing varying and repetitive PEs triggered distinct brain areas as revealed by direct contrast. Among others, experiencing varying versions triggered activity in the caudate, a region that has been associated with PEs. In contrast, repetitive PEs activated brain areas that resembled more those for retrieval of originally encoded episodes. Thus, ACC and posterior cingulate cortex activation seemed to serve both reactivating old and integrating new but similar information in episodic memory. Consistent with neural findings, participants recalled original objects less accurately when only presented with the same, but not varying, PE during fMRI. The current findings suggest that repeated PEs interact more strongly with a recalled original episodic memory than varying PEs., (© 2024 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.)

Human beings are able to imagine actions with the aim to change movement coordination and to learn particular movements. Meta-analyses to date have shown that when individuals systematically engage in imagery of a motor action without overt behavior this can improve motor performance and facilitate motor learning. Despite a considerable body of research in neuroscience, psychology, and sport science, however, there is at present no consensus on the neurocognitive mechanisms of imagery, and the mechanisms that lead to learning via imagined action are still being debated. In particular, the differences between imagined and overt action, and respective learning effects, remain to be fully explained. The present collection of manuscripts is a result of compiling both theoretical advances in the field of motor control and motor learning and those in imagery research to better understand imagery and learning. It is structured alongside five position papers from leading experts in the field, each of which is followed by a series of short commentaries written by experts from various disciplines. This collection demonstrates (a) that conceptualizations of imagery are manifold, vary highly and depend on the perspective chosen, (b) that existing approaches to the neurocognitive mechanisms of imagery and imagery practice of motor actions draw on distinct motor control and learning perspectives, (c) that perspectives from the wider fields of motor control and learning stimulate new approaches to explain imagery and imagery practice, (d) and that future research is needed to investigate and compare different perspectives and conceptualizations of the neurocognitive mechanisms of imagery and imagery practice of motor actions., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

The lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) in humans and other primates is critical for immediate, goal-directed behaviour and working memory, which are classically considered distinct from the cognitive and neural circuits that support long-term learning and memory. Over the past few years, a reconsideration of this textbook perspective has emerged, in that different timescales of memory-guided behaviour are in constant interaction during the pursuit of immediate goals. Here, we will first detail how neural activity related to the shortest timescales of goal-directed behaviour (which requires maintenance of current states and goals in working memory) is sculpted by long-term knowledge and learning - that is, how the past informs present behaviour. Then, we will outline how learning across different timescales (from seconds to years) drives plasticity in the primate lateral PFC, from single neuron firing rates to mesoscale neuroimaging activity patterns. Finally, we will review how, over days and months of learning, dense local and long-range connectivity patterns in PFC facilitate longer-lasting changes in population activity by changing synaptic weights and recruiting additional neural resources to inform future behaviour. Our Review sheds light on how the machinery of plasticity in PFC circuits facilitates the integration of learned experiences across time to best guide adaptive behaviour., (© 2024. Springer Nature Limited.)

Background: The importance of parent-teacher relationships has been well-discussed in Western contexts. It's still unclear whether and how parent-teacher relationships affect students' academic development, especially in the context of China's uneven development between urban and suburban areas., Aims: This study examined the urban-suburban differences in the influence of the parent-teacher relationships on students' learning engagement during the last 3 years of primary school to contribute to related policy and practice., Sample and Methods: Data were collected annually during the summer period in three waves from Grades 4 to 6. The sample included 1408 students (M age  = 10.35, SD = .48; 49.1% boys) paired with their mothers (M age  = 38.82, SD = 3.54), with 643 pairs from urban areas and 765 pairs from suburban areas in China. In each wave, the parents reported the frequency of contact with their child's teacher during the previous school year as well as the quality of their relationship, and the students reported their learning engagement. Latent growth models were used to examine the hypotheses., Results: A statistically significant decline in learning engagement was seen only in suburban students, while the parent-teacher relationships seemed to increase for both suburban and urban participants. Latent growth modelling showed that the increasing levels of relationship quality reduced the decline in the suburban students' learning engagement, although the contact between parents and teachers did not play such a positive role for both urban and suburban students., Conclusions: The findings reveal a compensatory effect of the quality of the parent-teacher relationship on suburban students' learning engagement. Considering the difference in students' learning engagement between urban and suburban students, increased effort on high-quality parent-teacher relationships for suburban students is required to better support their academic development., (© 2024 British Psychological Society.)

This study explores a novel approach to enhancing cognitive proficiency by targeting neural mechanisms that facilitate science and math learning, especially mental rotation. The study specifically examines the relationship between upper alpha intensity and mental rotation skills. Although prior neurofeedback research for increasing upper alpha highlights this correlation, mostly with familiar objects, novel chemistry and math learning prompts envisioning unfamiliar objects which question the persistence of this correlation. This study revisits the upper alpha and mental rotation relationship in the context of unfamiliar objects with a single neurofeedback session and examines the efficiency of manual and automatic neurofeedback protocols. Results will provide a basis for integrating neurofeedback protocols into learning applications for enhanced learning. Our study encompassed three cohorts: Group 1 experienced an automatic neurofeedback protocol, Group 2 received a manual neurofeedback protocol, and the control group had no neurofeedback intervention. The experimental phases involved EEG measurement of individual upper alpha (frequency of maximal power + 2 Hz) intensity, mental rotation tasks featuring geometric and unfamiliar molecular stimuli, one neurofeedback session for applicable groups, post-treatment upper alpha level assessments, and a mental rotation retest. The neurofeedback groups exhibited increased levels of upper alpha power, which was correlated with improved response time in mental rotation, regardless of stimulus type, compared to the control group. Both neurofeedback protocols achieved comparable results. This study advocates integrating neurofeedback into learning software for optimal learning experiences, highlighting a single session's efficacy and the substantial neurofeedback protocol's impact in enhancing upper alpha oscillations., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

The circuitry and pathways in the brains of humans and other species have long inspired researchers and system designers to develop accurate and efficient systems capable of solving real-world problems and responding in real-time. We propose the Syllable-Specific Temporal Encoding (SSTE) to learn vocal sequences in a reservoir of Izhikevich neurons, by forming associations between exclusive input activities and their corresponding syllables in the sequence. Our model converts the audio signals to cochleograms using the CAR-FAC model to simulate a brain-like auditory learning and memorization process. The reservoir is trained using a hardware-friendly approach to FORCE learning. Reservoir computing could yield associative memory dynamics with far less computational complexity compared to RNNs. The SSTE-based learning enables competent accuracy and stable recall of spatiotemporal sequences with fewer reservoir inputs compared with existing encodings in the literature for similar purpose, offering resource savings. The encoding points to syllable onsets and allows recalling from a desired point in the sequence, making it particularly suitable for recalling subsets of long vocal sequences. The SSTE demonstrates the capability of learning new signals without forgetting previously memorized sequences and displays robustness against occasional noise, a characteristic of real-world scenarios. The components of this model are configured to improve resource consumption and computational intensity, addressing some of the cost-efficiency issues that might arise in future implementations aiming for compactness and real-time, low-power operation. Overall, this model proposes a brain-inspired pattern generation network for vocal sequences that can be extended with other bio-inspired computations to explore their potentials for brain-like auditory perception. Future designs could inspire from this model to implement embedded devices that learn vocal sequences and recall them as needed in real-time. Such systems could acquire language and speech, operate as artificial assistants, and transcribe text to speech, in the presence of natural noise and corruption on audio data., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The recent review by Eaves et al. (Psychological Research/Psychologische Forschung, 2022) outlines the research conducted to-date on combined action-observation and motor imagery (AOMI), and more specifically, its added benefit to learning. Of interest, these findings have been primarily attributed to the dual action simulation hypothesis, whereby AO and MI activate separable representations for action that may be later merged when they are congruent with one another. The present commentary more closely evaluates this explanation. What's more, we offer an alternative information-based argument where the benefit to learning may be served instead by the availability of key information. Along these lines, we speculate on possible future directions including the need for a transfer design., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Speed of visual object recognition is facilitated after active manual exploration of objects relative to passive visual processing alone. Manual exploration allows viewers to select important information about object structure that may facilitate recognition. Viewpoints where the objects' axis of elongation is perpendicular or parallel to the line of sight are selected more during exploration, recognized faster than other viewpoints, and afford the most information about structure when object movement is controlled by the viewer. Prior work used virtual object exploration in active and passive viewing conditions, limiting multisensory structural object information. Adding multisensory information to encoding may change accuracy of overall recognition, viewpoint selection, and viewpoint recognition. We tested whether the known active advantage for object recognition would change when real objects were studied, affording visual and haptic information. Participants interacted with 3D novel objects during manual exploration or passive viewing of another's object interactions. Object recognition was tested using several viewpoints of rendered objects. We found that manually explored objects were recognized more accurately than objects studied through passive exploration and that recognition of viewpoints differed from previous work., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Following severe cerebrovascular accidents, patients are often unable to dress themselves. Little is known about the persistence and treatment of this impairment. Study 1 followed 23 patients who were (1) completely dependent on others for help with dressing (2) for two weeks continually until their discharge from the rehabilitation unit. Study 2, a randomized controlled trial of 24 patients, examined the effects of errorless learning and RehaGoal App-based dressing practice on recovery in dressing ability-impaired patients who also experienced visuospatial neglect and/or apraxia. The control and intervention groups both underwent a standard therapy in the rehab unit; the intervention group additionally received dressing training (seven sessions of 45 min). The primary outcome measure was the score on an adapted version of the Nottingham Stroke Dressing Assessment; secondary outcome measures were the Barthel Index and Functional Independence Measure. Less than one-third of the patients in Study1 , showed improvement. In Study 2 , the intervention produced no specific effect on patients' dressing ability. However, apraxia and neglect predicted improvement for both groups. If patients depend completely on assistance for dressing for two weeks, prospects for recovery are limited. Future studies should include additional intervention sessions and incorporate treatments for neglect or apraxia.

In their article, Frank and colleagues review the effectiveness of motor imagery in learning motor skills, proposing a perceptual-cognitive theory that may facilitate learning. Imagery effectiveness could be enhanced by different techniques, influencing neurophysiological processes. Identifying individuals who could benefit from MI is crucial, and incorporating MI into strong motor representations may lead to better outcomes. Combining MI with other treatments like virtual reality and brain stimulation can further enhance its effectiveness. The purpose of this commentary is to analyze these interventions in light of their potential to influence perceptual-cognitive states in order to strengthen imagery practice and achieve the desired outcomes., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Alcohol abuse induces various neurological disorders including motor learning deficits, possibly by affecting neuronal and astrocytic activity. Physical exercise is one effective approach to remediate synaptic loss and motor deficits as shown by our previous works. In this study, we unrevealed the role of exercise training in the recovery of cortical neuronal and astrocytic functions. Using a chronic alcohol injection mouse model, we found the hyperreactivity of astrocytes along with dendritic spine loss plus lower neuronal activity in the primary motor cortex. Persistent treadmill exercise training, on the other hand, improved neural spine formation and inhibited reactive astrocytes, alleviating motor learning deficits induced by alcohol exposure. These data collectively support the potency of endurance exercise in the rehabilitation of motor functions under alcohol abuse., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

In this issue, Frank et al. (2023) propose that motor imagery provides a perceptual-cognitive scaffold allowing 'perceptual' learning to transfer into 'motor' learning. The present commentary explores the perspective that changes in perception itself are often critical to the development of motor skills. Motor imagery may therefore be most beneficial for developing motor skills with high perceptual demands, such as requiring rapid action selection. Potential challenges for the perceptual-cognitive scaffold approach are identified based on the possible involvement of mechanisms involved in motor learning through movement execution, and how they may be recruited through the use of motor imagery., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Retrieval practice can reduce associative memory deficits for older adults but they underutilize this potent learning tool during self-regulated learning. The current experiment investigated whether teaching older adults to use retrieval practice more can improve their self-regulated learning. Younger and older adults made decisions about when to study, how often to engage in retrieval practice, and when to stop learning a list of medication-side effect pairs. Some younger and older adults received instructions before learning that emphasized the mnemonic benefits of retrieval practice over restudying material and described how to schedule retrieval practice to learn to a goal criterion level. This minimal intervention was effective for improving both younger and older adults' associative memory. These data indicate that a simple strategy for improving older adults self-regulated learning is to provide them with instructions that teach them how to use criterion learning to schedule their retrieval practice for to-be learned material.

Number sense is fundamental to the development of numerical problem-solving skills. In early childhood, children establish associations between non-symbolic (e.g., a set of dots) and symbolic (e.g., Arabic numerals) representations of quantity. The developmental estrangement theory proposes that the relationship between non-symbolic and symbolic representations of quantity evolves with age, with increased dissociation across development. Consistent with this theory, recent research suggests that cross-format neural representational similarity (NRS) between non-symbolic and symbolic quantities is correlated with arithmetic fluency in children but not in adolescents. However, it is not known if short-term training (STT) can induce similar changes as long-term development. In this study, children aged 7-10 years underwent a theoretically motivated 4-week number sense training. Using multivariate neural pattern analysis, we investigated whether short-term learning could modify the relation between cross-format NRS and arithmetic skills. Our results revealed a significant correlation between cross-format NRS and arithmetic fluency in distributed brain regions, including the parietal and prefrontal cortices, prior to training. However, this association was no longer observed after training, and multivariate predictive models confirmed these findings. Our findings provide evidence that intensive STT during early childhood can promote behavioral improvements and neural plasticity that resemble and recapitulate long-term neurodevelopmental changes that occur from childhood to adolescence. More generally, our study contributes to our understanding of the malleability of number sense and highlights the potential for targeted interventions to shape neurodevelopmental trajectories in early childhood. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: We tested the hypothesis that short-term number sense training induces the dissociation of symbolic numbers from non-symbolic representations of quantity in children. We leveraged a theoretically motivated intervention and multivariate pattern analysis to determine training-induced neurocognitive changes in the relation between number sense and arithmetic problem-solving skills. Neural representational similarity between non-symbolic and symbolic quantity representations was correlated with arithmetic skills before training but not after training. Short-term training recapitulates long-term neurodevelopmental changes associated with numerical problem-solving from childhood to adolescence., (© 2024 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Rieger et al. (Psychol Res 2023:1-10, 2023) describe action imagery as motor simulation. Inverse models encode predicted action effects and compute muscle commands, which are inhibited to prevent overt action. We welcome this conceptualization of action imagery as inherently generative and predictive. In the spirit of stimulating further theoretical discourse on action imagery, and more broadly, action control, our commentary provides a brief introduction to Active Inference to establish a contrasting perspective from which to consider what, how, and why action imagery contributes to motor learning., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Background: Although adding embodied instructors on the screen is considered an effective way to improve online multimedia learning, its effectiveness is still controversial. The level of realism of embodied on-screen instructors may be an influencing factor, but it is unclear how it affects multimedia learning., Aims: We explored whether and how embodied on-screen instructors rendered with different levels of realism in multimedia lessons affect learning process and learning outcomes., Samples: We recruited 125 college students as participants., Methods: Students learned about neural transmission in an online multimedia lesson that included a real human, cartoon human, cartoon animal or no instructor., Results: Students learning with cartoon human or cartoon animal instructors tended to fixate more on the relevant portions of the screen and performed better on retention and transfer tests than no instructor group. The real human group fixated more on the instructor, fixated less on the relevant portion of the screen and performed worse on a retention test in comparison to the cartoon human group. Fixation time on the instructor fully mediated the relationship between instructor realism and retention score., Conclusions: The addition of embodied on-screen instructors can promote multimedia learning, but the promotion effect would be better if the embodied instructor was a cartoon animal or cartoon human rather than a real human. This suggests an important boundary condition in which less realism of on-screen embodied instructors produces better learning processes and outcomes., (© 2024 British Psychological Society.)

Motivation is commonly recognized by researchers and practitioners as a key factor for motor learning. The OPTIMAL theory of motor learning (Wulf & Lewthwaite, 2016) claims that practice conditions that enhance learners' expectancies for future successful outcomes or that are autonomy supportive are motivating, thus leading to better learning. To examine the current evidence of the association between motivation and motor learning, we searched the literature for studies that manipulated expectancies and/or autonomy support. Specifically, our goals were to assess whether these manipulations resulted in group differences in motivation and, if so, whether increased motivation was associated with learning advantages. Results showed that out of 166 experiments, only 21% (n = 35) included at least one measure of motivation, even though this is the main factor proposed by OPTIMAL theory to explain the learning benefits of these manipulations. Among those, only 23% (n = 8) found group-level effects on motivation, suggesting that these manipulations might not be as motivating as expected. Of the eight experiments that found a group-level effect on motivation, five also observed learning benefits, offering limited evidence that when practice conditions increase motivation, learning is more likely to occur. Overall, the small number of studies assessing motivation precludes any reliable conclusions on the association between motivation and motor learning from being drawn. Together, our results question whether manipulations implemented in the research lines supporting OPTIMAL theory are indeed motivating and highlight the lack of sufficient evidence in these literatures to support that increased motivation benefits motor learning., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: Lifelong learning facilitates active ageing, and intragenerational learning-the process by which older adults learn from their peers-is an effective means of achieving this goal. The present research aims to elucidate the mechanisms and differences between intergenerational and intragenerational learning models for older adults as evidenced by brain-to-brain synchrony., Methods: Fifty-six instructor-learner dyads completed a study comparing intergenerational and intragenerational learning models, as well as task difficulty. The study utilized a block puzzle task and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) for hyperscanning., Results: The instructor-learner dyads showed greater interpersonal neural synchrony (INS) and learning acquisition in the intragenerational learning model in the difficult task condition (t (54) = 3.49, p < 0.01), whereas the two learning models yielded similar results in the easy condition (t (54) = 1.96, p = 0.06). In addition, INS and self-efficacy mediated the association between learning models and learning acquisition in older adults (b = 0.14, SEM = 0.04, 95 % CI [0.01 0.16])., Discussion: This study is the first to provide evidence of interbrain synchrony in an investigation of the intragenerational learning model in older adults. Our findings suggest that intra-learning is as effective as traditional inter-learning and may be more effective in certain contexts, such as difficult tasks. Encouraging intra-learning in community service or educational activities can effectively mitigate the challenge of limited volunteers and enhance learning acquisition among older adults., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Relatively little work has focused on why we are motivated to learn words. In adults, recent experiments have shown that intrinsic reward signals accompany successful word learning from context. In addition, the experience of reward facilitated long-term memory for words. In adolescence, developmental changes are seen in reward and motivation systems as well as in reading and language systems. Here, in the face of this developmental change, we ask whether adolescents experience reward from word learning, and how the reward and memory benefit seen in adults is modulated by age. We used a naturalistic reading paradigm, which involved extracting novel word meanings from sentence context without the need for explicit feedback. By exploring ratings of enjoyment during the learning phase, as well as recognition memory for words a day later, we assessed whether adolescents show the same reward and learning patterns as adults. We tested 345 children between the ages of 10-18 (N > 84 in each 2-year age-band) using this paradigm. We found evidence for our first prediction: children aged 10-18 report greater enjoyment for successful word learning. However, we did not find evidence for age-related change in this developmental period, or memory benefits. This work gives us greater insight into the process of language acquisition and sets the stage for further investigations of intrinsic reward in typical and atypical development. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: We constantly learn words from context, even in the absence of explicit rewards or feedback. In adults, intrinsic reward experienced during word learning is linked to a dopaminergic circuit in the brain, which also fuels enhancements in memory for words. We find adolescents also report enhanced reward or enjoyment when they successfully learn words from sentence context. The relationship between reward and learning is maintained between the ages of 10 and 18. Unlike in adults, we did not observe ensuing memory benefits., (© 2024 The Authors. Developmental Science published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

ABSTRACT Patients with developmental amnesia (DA) have suffered hippocampal damage in infancy and subsequently shown poor episodic memory, but good semantic memory. It is not clear how patients with DA learn semantic information in the presence of episodic amnesia. However, patients with DA show good recognition memory and it is possible that semantic learning may be supported by recognition. Building on previous work, we compared two methods for supporting semantic learning in DA; recognition-learning and recall-learning. In each condition, a patient with DA (aged 8 years) was presented with semantic information in animated videos. After each presentation of a video, learning was supported by an immediate memory test. Two videos were paired with a cued recall test. Another two videos were paired with a multiple-choice test to enable recognition-based learning. The outcome measure was semantic recall performance after a short delay of 30 min and a long delay of one week. Results showed a benefit of recognition-learning compared to recall-learning on cued recall in the patient with DA (76% vs. 35%). This finding indicates that young people with severe hippocampal damage can utilize recognition to support semantic learning. This has implications for the support of school-aged children with episodic memory difficulties.

Perceptual narrowing of speech perception supposes that young infants can discriminate most speech sounds early in life. During the second half of the first year, infants' phonetic sensitivity is attuned to their native phonology. However, supporting evidence for this pattern comes primarily from learners from a limited number of regions and languages. Very little evidence has accumulated on infants learning languages spoken in Asia, which accounts for most of the world's population. The present study examined the developmental trajectory of Korean-learning infants' sensitivity to a native stop contrast during the first year of life. The Korean language utilizes unusual voiceless three-way stop categories, requiring target categories to be derived from tight phonetic space. Further, two of these categories-lenis and aspirated-have undergone a diachronic change in recent decades as the primary acoustic cue for distinction has shifted among modern speakers. Consequently, the input distributions of these categories are mixed across speakers and speech styles, requiring learners to build flexible representations of target categories along these variations. The results showed that among the three age groups-4-6 months, 7-9 months, and 10-12 months-we tested, only 10-12-month-olds showed weak sensitivity to the two categories, suggesting that robust discrimination is not in place by the end of the first year. The study adds scarcely represented data, lending additional support for the lack of early sensitivity and prolonged emergence of native phonology that are inconsistent with learners of predominant studies and calls for more diverse samples to verify the generality of the typical perceptual narrowing pattern. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: We investigated Korean-learning infants' developmental trajectory of native phoneme categories and whether they show the typical perceptual narrowing pattern. Robust discrimination did not appear until 12 months, suggesting that Korean infants' native phonology is not stabilized by the end of the first year. The prolonged emergence of sensitivity could be due to restricted phonetic space and input variations but suggests the possibility of a different developmental trajectory. The current study contributes scarcely represented Korean-learning infants' phonetic discrimination data to the speech development field., (© 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

The aim was to test the use of eye-tracking methodology for the early detection of ASD in a task of association between unfamiliar objects and pseudowords. Significant differences were found between ASD (n = 57) and TD (n = 57) Spanish speaking toddlers in the number and time of fixation. The TD children showed more and longer fixations on eyes and mouth while the ASD children attended almost exclusively to objects, making it difficult to integrate lexical and phonological information. Moreover, the TD toddlers looked at the mouth when the pseudoword was produced while the ASD toddlers did not. Gaze fixation on eyes and mouth during word learning recorded by eye-tracking may be used as a biomarker for the early diagnosis of ASD., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

The ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) controls the majority of protein degradation in cells and dysregulation of the UPS has been implicated in the pathophysiology of numerous neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's disease. Further, strong evidence supports a critical role for the UPS in synaptic plasticity and memory formation. However, while proteasome function is known to decrease broadly in the brain across the lifespan, whether it changes in the hippocampus, a region critical for memory storage and among the first impacted in Alzheimer's disease, at rest and following learning in the aged brain remains unknown. Further, which proteins have altered targeting for protein degradation in the aged hippocampus has yet to be explored and whether learning in advanced age interacts with changes in ubiquitin-proteasome function across the lifespan remains unknown. Here, using proteasome activity assays and unbiased proteomic analyses, we report age-dependent changes in proteasome activity and degradation-specific K48 polyubiquitin protein targeting in the hippocampus and retrosplenial cortex of male and female rats across the lifespan. In the hippocampus, the targets of altered protein degradation were involved in transcription and astrocyte structure or G-protein and Interferon signaling in males and females, respectively. Importantly, we found that contextual fear conditioning led to an increase in proteasome activity and K48 polyubiquitin protein targeting in the hippocampus of aged male rats, a result in direct contrast to what was previously reported in young adult animals. Together, these data suggest that changes in protein degradation in the hippocampus across the lifespan may be contributing to age-related memory loss., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest All authors declare no competing financial interests. The funders had no role in the design of the experiment, analysis or interpretation of data or the decision to publish., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

It is well accepted that repeatedly imagining oneself acting without any overt behavior can lead to learning. The prominent theory accounting for why imagery practice is effective, motor simulation theory, posits that imagined action and overt action are functionally equivalent, the exception being activation of the end effector. If, as motor simulation theory states, one can compile the goal, plan, motor program and outcome of an action during imagined action similar to overt action, then learning of novel skills via imagery should proceed in a manner equivalent to that of overt action. While the evidence on motor simulation theory is both plentiful and diverse, it does not explicitly account for differences in neural and behavioural findings between imagined and overt action. In this position paper, we briefly review theoretical accounts to date and present a perceptual-cognitive theory that accounts for often observed outcomes of imagery practice. We suggest that learning by way of imagery reflects perceptual-cognitive scaffolding, and that this 'perceptual' learning transfers into 'motor' learning (or not) depending on various factors. Based on this theory, we characterize consistently reported learning effects that occur with imagery practice, against the background of well-known physical practice effects and show that perceptual-cognitive scaffolding is well-suited to explain what is being learnt during imagery practice., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Purpose : The aims of this study were to examine the learning of anticipation skill in the presence of kinematic and outcome probabilities information, and to see if this learning exhibited characteristics of Bayesian integration. Method : Participants with no competitive tennis playing experience watched tennis player stimuli playing forehand tennis shots and were tasked with predicted shot outcomes. Accuracy, response times and perceived task effort were recorded, pre, post and during four acquisition blocks where outcome feedback was provided. In both Experiment 1 and 2, kinematic information about shot direction was either present in the training group stimuli or absent. In Experiment 1, left/right shot probability information remained equi-probable for both groups. In Experiment 2, both groups also trained with a bias in the shot outcome probability toward one shot direction on 80% of the trials across acquisition blocks (and were not told about this manipulation). Results : Pre-to-post anticipation performance improved in the presence of kinematic (EXP 1) or both information sources (EXP 2). Pre-to-post improvements in the presence of shot outcome probability information were congruent with the bias in the shot direction trained (EXP 2). Superior anticipation performance was found when both information sources were present. The presence of kinematic information resulted in increased perceived effort during early training (EXP 1 & 2). Bayesian odds ratios indicated that shot direction probabilities and kinematic information were integrated during anticipation skill learning. Conclusion : Learning with shot direction probabilities and kinematic information shows characteristics of Bayesian integration.

Complex subjects such as physiology can be challenging for students to learn. These challenges are not uncommon in implementing the learning process in physiology and affect learning outcomes. Dramatization is an interactive and effective method to improve learning outcomes. In a project designed by senior medical students, junior medical students were guided in creating dramatizations related to three topics. Senior students were trained and assisted to prepare scenarios and make videos. The dramatizations were then carried out with junior medical students to help them better understand physiology and pathophysiology topics. A group of junior students receiving the same topics in a lecture format served as a control group. Pretest and posttest questionnaires were used to measure the improvement of learning outcomes. Assessment results showed an increase in performance in both groups. This study shows that dramatizations provide an effective alternative to lectures for instructing junior medical students. NEW & NOTEWORTHY The preparation of dramatizations involved students. The ideas, analogies, and dramatizations were originally from students. Dramatization is an alternative form of understanding learning objectives of medical physiology in an interesting way to increase motivation.

The efficiency of motor skill acquisition is age-dependent, making it increasingly challenging to learn complex manoeuvres later in life. Zebra finches, for instance, acquire a complex vocal motor programme during a developmental critical period after which the learned song is essentially impervious to modification. Although inhibitory interneurons are implicated in critical period closure, it is unclear whether manipulating them can reopen heightened motor plasticity windows. Using pharmacology and a cell-type specific optogenetic approach, we manipulated inhibitory neuron activity in a premotor area of adult zebra finches beyond their critical period. When exposed to auditory stimulation in the form of novel songs, manipulated birds added new vocal syllables to their stable song sequence. By lifting inhibition in a premotor area during sensory experience, we reintroduced vocal plasticity, promoting an expansion of the syllable repertoire without compromising pre-existing song production. Our findings provide insights into motor skill learning capacities, offer potential for motor recovery after injury, and suggest avenues for treating neurodevelopmental disorders involving inhibitory dysfunctions., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Neural systems have evolved not only to solve environmental challenges through internal representations but also, under social constraints, to communicate these to conspecifics. In this work, we aim to understand the structure of these internal representations and how they may be optimized to transmit pertinent information from one individual to another. Thus, we build on previous teacher-student communication protocols to analyze the formation of individual and shared abstractions and their impact on task performance. We use reinforcement learning in grid-world mazes where a teacher network passes a message to a student to improve task performance. This framework allows us to relate environmental variables with individual and shared representations. We compress high-dimensional task information within a low-dimensional representational space to mimic natural language features. In coherence with previous results, we find that providing teacher information to the student leads to a higher task completion rate and an ability to generalize tasks it has not seen before. Further, optimizing message content to maximize student reward improves information encoding, suggesting that an accurate representation in the space of messages requires bi-directional input. These results highlight the role of language as a common representation among agents and its implications on generalization capabilities., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), the most important inhibitory neurotransmitter in the human brain, has long been considered essential in human behavior in general and learning in particular. GABA concentration can be quantified using magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS). Using this technique, numerous studies have reported associations between baseline GABA levels and various human behaviors. However, regional GABA concentration is not fixed and may exhibit rapid modulation as a function of environmental factors. Hence, quantification of GABA levels at several time points during the performance of tasks can provide insights into the dynamics of GABA levels in distinct brain regions. This review reports on findings from studies using repeated measures (n = 41) examining the dynamic modulation of GABA levels in humans in response to various interventions in the perceptual, motor, and cognitive domains to explore associations between GABA modulation and human behavior. GABA levels in a specific brain area may increase or decrease during task performance or as a function of learning, depending on its precise involvement in the process under investigation. Here, we summarize the available evidence and derive two overarching hypotheses regarding the role of GABA modulation in performance and learning. Firstly, training-induced increases in GABA levels appear to be associated with an improved ability to differentiate minor perceptual differences during perceptual learning. This observation gives rise to the 'GABA increase for better neural distinctiveness hypothesis'. Secondly, converging evidence suggests that reducing GABA levels may play a beneficial role in effectively filtering perceptual noise, enhancing motor learning, and improving performance in visuomotor tasks. Additionally, some studies suggest that the reduction of GABA levels is related to better working memory and successful reinforcement learning. These observations inspire the 'GABA decrease to boost learning hypothesis', which states that decreasing neural inhibition through a reduction of GABA in dedicated brain areas facilitates human learning. Additionally, modulation of GABA levels is also observed after short-term physical exercise. Future work should elucidate which specific circumstances induce robust GABA modulation to enhance neuroplasticity and boost performance., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

The benefits of learning a motor skill extend to improved task-specific cognitive abilities. The mechanistic underpinnings of this motor-cognition relationship potentially rely on overlapping neural resources involved in both processes, an assumption lacking causal evidence. We hypothesize that interfering with prefrontal networks would inhibit concurrent motor skill performance, long-term learning and associated cognitive functions dependent on similar networks (transfer). We conducted a randomised, double-blinded, sham-controlled brain stimulation study using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) in young adults spanning over three weeks to assess the role of the prefrontal regions in learning a complex balance task and long-term cognitive performance. Balance training combined with active tDCS led to higher performance variability in the trained task as compared to the sham group, impacting the process of learning a complex task without affecting the learning rate. Furthermore, active tDCS also positively influenced performance in untrained motor and cognitive tasks. The findings of this study help ascertaining the networks directly involved in learning a complex motor task and its implications on cognitive function. Hence, opening up the possibility of harnessing the observed frontal networks involved in resource mobilization in instances of aging, brain lesion/injury or dysfunction., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Combined action observation and motor imagery (AOMI) training improves motor skill performance, but limited research has investigated possible moderating factors for this intervention. This study examined the influence of action observation (AO) perspective on the effectiveness of AOMI training for novices learning a 'shadow' Osoto Gari judo throw. Thirty novice participants were randomly assigned to AOMI training that displayed egocentric footage (AOMI EGO ) or allocentric footage (AOMI ALLO ) of the Osoto Gari, or Control training. A motor learning design incorporating pre-test (Day 1), acquisition (Days 2-6), post-test (Day 7), and retention-test (Day 14) was adopted. Motor skill performance, self-efficacy, and mental representation structures were recorded as measures of learning. There were mixed effects for motor skill performance across the three training conditions utilized in this study, with AOMI ALLO training significantly reducing error scores for final right hip flexion angle and peak right ankle velocity compared to AOMI EGO training. Self-efficacy increased for all training conditions over time. Both AOMI EGO and AOMI ALLO training led to improved functional changes in mental representation structures over time compared to Control training. The findings suggest AOMI training led to improved perceptual-cognitive scaffolding, irrespective of AO perspective, and offer some support for the use of AOMI ALLO training to facilitate novice learning of complex, serial motor skills in sport., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Temporal rescaling of sequential neural activity has been observed in multiple brain areas during behaviors involving time estimation and motor execution at variable speeds. Temporally asymmetric Hebbian rules have been used in network models to learn and retrieve sequential activity, with characteristics that are qualitatively consistent with experimental observations. However, in these models sequential activity is retrieved at a fixed speed. Here, we investigate the effects of a heterogeneity of plasticity rules on network dynamics. In a model in which neurons differ by the degree of temporal symmetry of their plasticity rule, we find that retrieval speed can be controlled by varying external inputs to the network. Neurons with temporally symmetric plasticity rules act as brakes and tend to slow down the dynamics, while neurons with temporally asymmetric rules act as accelerators of the dynamics. We also find that such networks can naturally generate separate 'preparatory' and 'execution' activity patterns with appropriate external inputs., Competing Interests: MG, NB No competing interests declared, (© 2023, Gillett and Brunel.)

Dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens core (NAcC) is generally considered to be a proxy for phasic firing of the ventral tegmental area dopamine (VTA DA ) neurons. Thus, dopamine release in NAcC is hypothesized to reflect a unitary role in reward prediction error signaling. However, recent studies reveal more diverse roles of dopamine neurons, which support an emerging idea that dopamine regulates learning differently in distinct circuits. To understand whether the NAcC might regulate a unique component of learning, we recorded dopamine release in NAcC while male rats performed a backward conditioning task where a reward is followed by a neutral cue. We used this task because we can delineate different components of learning, which include sensory-specific inhibitory and general excitatory components. Furthermore, we have shown that VTA DA neurons are necessary for both the specific and general components of backward associations. Here, we found that dopamine release in NAcC increased to the reward across learning while reducing to the cue that followed as it became more expected. This mirrors the dopamine prediction error signal seen during forward conditioning and cannot be accounted for temporal-difference reinforcement learning. Subsequent tests allowed us to dissociate these learning components and revealed that dopamine release in NAcC reflects the general excitatory component of backward associations, but not their sensory-specific component. These results emphasize the importance of examining distinct functions of different dopamine projections in reinforcement learning., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing financial interests., (Copyright © 2024 the authors.)

Categorical learning is important and often challenging in both specialized domains, such as medical image interpretation, and commonplace ones, such as face recognition. Research has shown that comparing items from different categories can enhance the learning of perceptual classifications, particularly when those categories appear highly similar. Here, we developed and tested novel adaptively triggered comparisons (ATCs), in which errors produced during interactive learning dynamically prompted the presentation of active comparison trials. In a facial identity paradigm, undergraduate participants learned to recognize and name varying views of 22 unknown people. In Experiment 1, single-item classification trials were compared to a condition in which ATC trials were generated whenever a participant repeatedly confused two faces. Comparison trials required discrimination between simultaneously presented exemplars from the confused categories. In Experiment 2, an ATC condition was compared to a non-adaptive comparison condition. Participants learned to accuracy and speed criteria, and completed immediate and delayed posttests. ATCs substantially enhanced learning efficiency in both experiments. These studies, using a novel adaptive procedure guided by each learner's performance, show that adaptively triggered comparisons improve category learning., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Moving effectively is essential for any animal. Thus, many different kinds of brain processes likely contribute to learning and adapting movement. How these contributions are combined is unknown. Nevertheless, the field of motor adaptation has been working under the assumption that measures of explicit and implicit motor adaptation can simply be added in total adaptation. While this has been tested, we show that these tests were insufficient. We put this additivity assumption to the test in various ways and find that measures of implicit and explicit adaptation are not additive. This means that future studies should measure both implicit and explicit adaptation directly. It also challenges us to disentangle how various motor adaptation processes do combine when producing movements and may have implications for our understanding of other kinds of learning as well (data and code: https://osf.io/3yhw5)., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing financial interests., (Copyright © 2024 ‘t Hart et al.)