Adult Brain Shows Learning Changes Fast: Scientific American Podcast
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60-Second Science | Mind & Brain
Adult Brain Shows Learning
Changes Fast
Less than two hours of training over a few days produced noticeable brain
changes in adult learners. Cynthia Graber reports
| April 4, 2011 |
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Sometimes people complain when trying to learn a
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new skill: “I’m not that young anymore. It’s harder
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to learn anything new.” But adult brains may be
more pliable than we thought. Research has shown
weeks or months. Now comes a study finding that
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it’s possible to increase the brain’s gray matter
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that adult brains can increase in gray matter over
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quite quickly—in only a matter of days. That’s
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according to research in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences. [Veronica Kwok et al., "Learning new color names produces rapid
increase in gray matter in the intact adult human cortex"]
The scientists created an experiment that mimicked how young children learn new words. They
took four similar shades of green and blue and gave them made-up names—meaningless
Mandarin monosyllables like sòng. Nineteen adults learned to match those names and shades in
five sessions over three days, a total of an hour and 48 minutes.
The scientists took MRI images of the subjects’ brains before and after the experiment. And they
found a noticeable increase in gray matter volume in the regions known to be related to color
vision and perception. The researchers contend that the adult brain is thus more changeable
more quickly than anyone thought. And that an old dog can learn a new trick.
—Cynthia Graber
[The above text is an exact transcript of this podcast.]
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http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=adult-brain-shows-learning-changes-11-04-04[4/20/2011 8:26:35 PM]