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: 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: 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: 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 .