News Finding: "We found that the brain works in a similar way during learning.
Paper Finding: Number of within-manifold perturbations, n 5 28 (monkey J), 14 (monkey L); outside-manifold perturbations, n 5 39 (monkey J), 15 (monkey L).
News Context: Understanding how the brain's activity can be "flexed" during learning could eventually be used to develop better treatments for stroke and other brain injuries. "We found that the brain works in a similar way during learning. We found that subjects were able to more readily recombine familiar activity patterns in new ways relative to creating entirely novel patterns."
Paper Context: Note that a negative acquisition time change indicates performance improvement (that is, targets were acquired faster). Number of within-manifold perturbations, n 5 28 (monkey J), 14 (monkey L); outside-manifold perturbations, n 5 39 (monkey J), 15 (monkey L). A larger after-effect indicates more learning had occurred in response to the perturbation.