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: If the control spaces for one type of perturbation tended to be farther from the intuitive control space, then they might be harder to find, and thus, learning would be reduced.
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: Learning is significantly better for within-manifold perturbations (red, n 5 28 (monkey J), 14 (monkey L)) than for outside-manifold perturbations (blue, n 5 39 (monkey J), 15 (monkey L)). If the control spaces for one type of perturbation tended to be farther from the intuitive control space, then they might be harder to find, and thus, learning would be reduced. Incidentally, Fig.