The Biology Of Learning

 The Biology of Learning

M. Bakri Musa

Excerpt #19:  from my Qur’an, Hadith, And Hikayat:  Exercises In Critical Thinking

 

An intriguing insight on learning comes from studies on the lowly flatworm, Planaria sp. In the 1950s it was found that these worms could be taught (through operant conditioning with the reward being food) to choose the right channel to flow into in a divided container of water. More intriguing, if you were to slice the animal and with each half regenerating to its original self, both progenies retained that learned behavior.

 

         The enigma did not end there. Chop the “learned” worm into pieces and then feed them to a baby Planaria, it too would grow to have the skills of the planaria that it had eaten without any additional training or learning. If only that could be translated into human learning, the teaching of calculus would be simplified! 

 

         Those early Planaria experiments find a new twist today. Older mice are slower learners as compared to younger ones. No surprise there. However, when an old mouse is given the blood (parabiosis) of a young one, the old rodent also becomes a fast learner. Those experiments were focused less on learning per se rather the effect of aging on learning.

 

         Nonetheless those findings led briefly to the opening of many clinics offering blood (and its products) transfusions from young donors to ageing clients. The Federal Drug Administration quickly shut those down!  

 

         Another set of learning deserves a separate discussion. Consider the motor skills in a free throw of a basketball. At the first missed throw, you adjust accordingly until you get it just right. The important ingredient there is the immediate feedback. Coaching helps with the finer points.

 

         The neurobiological correlate there is that with every successful throw, the brain remembers that circuit. As more successful throws are executed, that pathway is strengthened until it becomes well paved. The initial slow circuitous path for the neuronal impulses soon becomes a superfast highway.

 

         Athletes refer to that as “muscle memory.” The memory is not in the muscles but with the nervous system, from the brain to the spinal cord and peripheral nerves to the muscles. The plateau in progress learners experience with playing a musical instrument (or any new skills) reflect this reorganization of the nerve pathways.

 

         Throwing the basketball is pure motor skill. In a game, you have a dynamic environment where you have to factor in what your opponents and teammates would do. That goes beyond simple motor skills to some cognitive components, adding a quantum leap in complexity.

 

         This complexity of the learning process was dramatically demonstrated by Greg Ashby from the University of California Santa Barbara. He had a patient with severe Parkinson’s disease. In this malady the old part of the brain had degenerated resulting in reduced production of the neurotransmitter dopamine. Parkinson patients also usually have tremors, muscle rigidity, and thus the inability to walk. Part of the treatment is to give drugs that would increase the dopamine production or reduce its destruction.

 

         This particular patient could barely walk, stricken with tremors and muscle rigidity. Ashby then had him on a bicycle, and off he went cycling without hesitation. The moment he stopped however, he had to be helped lest he would stumble as he could not regain his gait and balance.

 

         Ashby was demonstrating that there are many human learning systems involving different parts of the brain, from the old part concerned with walking and gait, to the middle and on to the newer pre-cortical areas involved with “higher” learning, as with riding a bicycle or playing the piano. He showed that patients with Parkinson’s disease only their “old” learning as with gait, was affected but not “new” learning as with riding a bicycle. The legendary crooner Tony Bennett could still remember the lyrics of his songs and sing flawlessly in public long after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. He could not however remember his band members’ names.

 

         One of the therapies employed with such patients is to encourage them to use their “new” learning that they have acquired later in life, as with singing, playing the piano, or riding a bicycle so as to keep up their muscle tone and more importantly, spirit and emotions.

 

         With all the different learning systems and parts of the brain involved, it follows that an individual would have different learning styles that would be most effective for him or her. Some learn best through seeing, others through hearing or doing.

 

         I was fortunate to be aware of these differences in my own learning abilities early during my college years. I discovered that I could remember better when I hear something as in a lecture, as compared to reading. I capitalized on that by not missing my lectures. I found the various associated but unconscious clues such as my professor’s voice, facial expressions, and yes, even his jackets as well as the class reactions all helpful cues to my learning and remembering.

 

         The only time when my learning through reading would exceed that from hearing (as with listening to a lecture or seeing a video) is when I read something exceptionally well written. Thus, I enjoy reading great novels and literature over viewing their movie versions.

 

         Teachers have to be sensitive to the various learning models and patterns of their students. Likewise, we should recognize the one or two learning models that best suit us, and capitalize on those.

 

Next:  Different Learning Models