News Finding: As reported in Nature, the researchers found for the first time that there are limitations on how adaptable the brain is during learning and that these restrictions are a key determinant for whether a new skill will be easy or difficult to learn.
Paper Finding: For monkey J (left), the after-effect was significantly larger for within-manifold perturbations (red) than for outside-manifold perturbations (blue) (Wilcoxon rank-sum test, P , 10 23 ).
News Context: For example, a trained pianist can learn a new melody easier than learning how to hit a tennis serve. As reported in Nature, the researchers found for the first time that there are limitations on how adaptable the brain is during learning and that these restrictions are a key determinant for whether a new skill will be easy or difficult to learn. 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.
Paper Context: A larger after-effect indicates more learning had occurred in response to the perturbation. For monkey J (left), the after-effect was significantly larger for within-manifold perturbations (red) than for outside-manifold perturbations (blue) (Wilcoxon rank-sum test, P , 10 23 ). For monkey L (right), the trend is in the same direction as monkey J, but the effect did not achieve significance (Wilcoxon rank-sum test, P .