News Finding: Because the existing brain patterns likely reflect how the neurons are interconnected, the results suggest that the connectivity among neurons shapes learning.
Paper Finding: The principles we observed may govern other forms of learning 4,25-28 and perhaps even cognitive processes.
News Context: The harder-to-learn patterns were different from any of the pre-existing patterns, whereas the easier-to-learn patterns were combinations of pre-existing brain patterns. Because the existing brain patterns likely reflect how the neurons are interconnected, the results suggest that the connectivity among neurons shapes learning. Byron M. Yu, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and biomedical engineering at Carnegie Mellon, believes this work demonstrates the utility of BCI for basic scientific studies that will eventually impact people's lives.
Paper Context: In summary, a BCI paradigm enabled us to reveal neural constraints on learning. The principles we observed may govern other forms of learning 4,25-28 and perhaps even cognitive processes. For example, combinatorial creativity 29 , which involves re-combining cognitive elements in Vertical bars indicate the standard error of log-likelihoods, computed across four cross-validation folds.