News Finding: 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.
Paper Finding: 1b , neurons 1 and 3 positively co-modulate due to common input, whereas neurons 1 and 2 negatively co-modulate due to an indirect inhibitory connection.
News Context: The results showed that the subjects learned to generate some neural activity patterns more easily than others, since they only sometimes achieved accurate cursor movements. 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.
Paper Context: In the simplified network represented in Fig. 1b , neurons 1 and 3 positively co-modulate due to common input, whereas neurons 1 and 2 negatively co-modulate due to an indirect inhibitory connection. Such co-modulations among neurons mean that neural activity does not uniformly populate the neural space [16] .