The neuroscience of learning.
when i was 13
i started learning to play the guitar
and i immediately faced the challenges
that millions of kids
must have faced before me my fingers
were too small
to play the strings too weak to press
them
properly and my hands were too untrained
to move from note to note so the first
one month
was half formed unclear painful notes
that sounded bad
and felt worse but the second month
nothing much changed but the third month
something did change
my fingers weren’t hurting the same way
they were pressing on the notes
a lot better and the chords were
actually sounding like
chords i could play my first chord after
three months of practice which was the a
chord arguably the easiest chord to play
and after six months of practice i could
play my first bar
chord i wish i could say that i learned
a big lesson that day but i was so
excited to
call myself a guitarist that all i could
do was look forward to college
and impressing other people with my
first a chord
i decided to take a biology and become a
doctor gave a couple of
entrance exams got decent ranks did my
mbbs from
grant medical college in mumbai and my
md medicine from km hospital in mumbai
and when i entered my residency i faced
a challenge that thousands of residents
had faced before me
my medical knowledge was too less to
understand the complexities of the cases
in front of me my hands were too
untrained to do all the procedures that
were expected of me
and my time management skills were not
good enough for me to finish the tasks i
had to do
each day it was like i was learning the
guitar all over again
but with human lives at stake i found
myself constantly reading to update my
knowledge
practicing medical procedures and my
efficiency kept getting better
after three to four months of residency
i
found myself recognizing the patterns
between different diseases
and i was actually finishing my work in
time and
getting a good night’s sleep not every
day but
some days and subconsciously something
else was happening
i was developing a confidence that
whatever be the task
i can learn it i was learning to learn
this got me curious about the process of
learning what happens in the brain
when we learn this led me to be
interested in neurology and neuroscience
i took up my dm neurology in sgpgi
in lucknow and four years later here i
am talking to you
about the neuroscience behind learning
so what is learning to put it simply
learning is the intake and storage
of new information and forming new
connections
with existing information learning is
something we spend a lot of time on
almost all our childhood and a
significant part of our adult lives
goes in the act of learning something
whether it’s a new language
a new skill a new concept every ted talk
you listen to
is giving you new information you
probably didn’t have
so let us look at the three aspects of
learning
from a neuroscience perspective
first is intake the intake of new
information
requires a sensory apparatus
all the information you receive enters
your brain through one of your five
senses
through your touch taste smell sound and
sight when i’m talking to you this
information is reaching you through your
ears
it hits your tympanic membrane and the
cochlea inside your ear converts it into
electric signals
these electric signals are taken up into
your brain
in a place called as the auditory cortex
inside your temporal lobe this is where
these electric signals are decoded
into information that you perceive as
sounds
as words and meanings
similarly my expressions my gestures
reach your eyes hit your retina
where it is converted into electric
signals that are sent to your
visual cortex inside your occipital lobe
and again this is where your brain
understands these electric signals
as images shapes meaningful
visualizations similarly for touch and
the somatosensory cortex and so on
this is intake of information and this
is step one of learning an important
step no doubt
the more you intake the more you learn
but
as essential as this is i believe this
is the
easiest aspect of learning the next step
is putting all this information together
and making
sense of all your senses every
primary sensory cortex like the auditory
cortex like the occipital cortex
has a secondary association
cortex which has the role of putting all
the pieces of this jigsaw
back together and forming a big picture
this is where our brain constructs a
three-dimensional
view of the world around us and what we
perceive
as reality and this is the reality
that our brain must now learn but it’s
not enough to just let information
in that information must also be stored
and this is where memory comes in memory
is the glue
that holds reality together memory is
what
links each moment to the next and gives
reality the uninterrupted feeling of
time
passing there are different types of
memory there is the
immediate memory for instance if
somebody gives you their phone number
the amount of time you need to remember
those digits
to take out your phone enter those
digits and
store their contact is what immediate
memory is
along with the five other details of
where and how you met because that’s how
all contact names are stored in the
brain the immediate memory also known as
the working memory
is stored in the prefrontal cortex which
is at the front
of your brain in your frontal lobe what
if you don’t have your phone with you
well assuming you get over your anxiety
you will have to
memorize it in other words learn it
this is where long-term memory comes in
and this
is where your hippocampus which is an
area
deep within the temporal cortex comes
into play
the hippocampus has the role of storing
your long-term
memories and the process of
converting your immediate memories into
long-term memories that you will just
remember
is what is learning but getting
something to stay on as a long-term
memory is not easy
most of the information that we receive
is subconsciously perceived and
lost we see hundreds of faces in a day
at least we used to before this pandemic
but most of them don’t really hit our
conscious perception
they would barely register over in our
working memory for a second or two
and then just fade away but the faces
that we do remember
are the faces we see every day or
the faces that we see in a context which
is important to us
like a first date for instance in other
words there are two things that decide
if a piece of information will get
stored on
as a long-term memory repetition
and context so let’s talk of repetition
when a new piece of information enters
the hippocampus one of the things that
happens is
formation of new synapses
a synapse is the connection between two
neurons which are brain
cells but a new synapse is fragile and
can very easily break
or rather that memory can get lost
unless it is
strengthened repeated firing of that
synapse
will lead to something called as
long-term potentiation or
ltp which is one of the fundamental
building blocks of learning the synapse
gets stronger and stronger
which means it takes progressively less
effort
to fire it until you are doing it
without thinking
as if it is a habit this is how
practice leads to habit which will
become
intuition you end up doing something
without
thinking now let’s talk of context just
like the saying
no man is an island similarly no piece
of information
exists in isolation everything you know
is connected to something
else that you know your brain is
constantly looking for patterns and
every new piece of information
must fit into a pre-existing pattern
to be understood there are many ways of
visualizing this
i visualize it as a knowledge tree if i
were to tell you something new
like a new fact it’s like handing you a
new
leaf of information your brain will
register it
and look for a place in the knowledge
tree
to place it a branch of other similar
things
to group it with if you do find
something like that
this new piece of information becomes a
part of a larger picture
and fits in and therefore it becomes
easier to remember
new connections start forming between
neurons or new synapses
and they become progressively stronger
because of long-term potentiation
and this process is called as
neuroplasticity which brings me to my
first
two learning to learn hacks that i use
to learn better practice more
and find better context it also brings
me to the first
pitfall of learning if a new piece of
information
does not fit in easily it could lead to
anxiety or
fear our brains need to make things fit
into a pattern is so great
that often we may end up making patterns
prematurely
just to make space for new information
that doesn’t fit
or they may even modify the information
itself to make it fit better this
is a form of cognitive bias that needs
to be looked out
for now the information you’re getting
is in familiar territory your brain
already knows what to do with it
the networks are in place the patterns
are already formed and you are
comfortable learning this but suppose it
is unfamiliar information
a new job a new language a project that
is outside of your comfort zone
this is an uncomfortable situation like
an animal outside of its natural habitat
the brain reacts in a different way when
forced to learn something that
doesn’t fit you may have heard of the
limbic system
it’s an ancient part of the brain that
controls emotions
one of the parts of the limbic system is
an area called amygdala
which gets activated whenever there is a
threat
and activation of the amygdala leads to
a hormone called
cortisol which is a stress hormone and
cortisol has an important role to play
in the formation of new synapses
or neuroplasticity in other words stress
is an important factor for learning we
think of stress as a negative thing
but stress is also a sign that your
brain is taking something seriously if a
new piece of information
does not elicit any stress like one of
the hundreds of faces that we pass in
the street
it might not register long enough to be
converted
into a long-term memory your amiga
activation
has a key role to play in focus
motivation
and distraction like any student
learning a new topic the day before the
exam
can tell you a little bit of stress acts
like a great boost for learning
but it is not something that i would
recommend depending on
because too much stress can very easily
trigger
anxiety and panic which act as a
detriment to learning
so the third learning to learn hack that
i use
is optimizing your stress now this is
something that is easier said than done
but i’ve realized that it is something
we all do subconsciously
we all have an idea of our own stress
sweet spot
where too little means you’re bored and
too much
means you’re frustrated and that optimum
zone in the middle
is where productivity and learning
happens
and this brings me to the final part of
my talk which is failure
now the idea of failure has been
ingrained in us as something to avoid
but failure is actually feedback
in the loop of learning learning is not
a linear process
because our neural networks are not
linear everything in the brain happens
in circles
as feedback loops information going back
and forth
so an important part of learning new
information is putting that information
back into the world
in some form in other words teaching is
a great way of learning
why is it important to learn to learn
our knowledge of the brain is still
growing
but this is an important conversation to
be had
right from schools everybody learns
differently
and understanding the science behind
learning
can help children learn better children
with learning disability dyslexia adhd
they will benefit
from an early diagnosis and a greater
understanding
of how learning happens in the brain the
networks that are used to learn
are formed in childhood but they
continue evolving in
adults i have realized that learning to
learn has an exponential benefit
the more you learn the easier it becomes
to learn new things
in the last three months i’ve been
experimenting with learning
i’ve been taking up new projects
upgrading old projects and
trying out these techniques to improve
the outcome apart from my life as a
doctor and a neurologist and seeing
patients and learning to treat them
better
i’m learning to write poetry play the
guitar give music
to poetry and make songs shoot and edit
videos
i’ve started a youtube channel to
explore neuroscience
and normalize talking about neural
networks
in relation to learning to behavior to
mental health
and to everyday experiences i’m using
this knowledge of stress
and attention to improve my multitasking
i feel i’m on a journey
with no end because there is always
something else to learn
usually these talks end with a
conclusion but i’m speaking to you today
from the middle of my journey
so think of this as a story so far i’ll
keep learning new things every day and
try to combine them
into a bigger picture i hope you’ll all
do the same
happy learning everyone