News Finding: For example, a trained pianist can learn a new melody easier than learning how to hit a tennis serve.
Paper Finding: That monkey showed more learning on sessions when the initial performance impairment was larger.
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: Panel a shows the initial performance impairment could explain a portion of the variability of learning within both classes of perturbation for monkey J. That monkey showed more learning on sessions when the initial performance impairment was larger. For monkey L, the initial performance impairment could account for a portion of the within-class variation in learning only for outside-manifold perturbations; this monkey showed less learning when the initial performance impairment was larger.