« Mice shrug off bullies | Main | The path less travelled feels shorter »

Instant replay may help to mould memories

Brain's rewind function argues for taking a break.

Idlers, loafers and layabouts, listen up. A new study suggests that the times when we sit around twiddling our thumbs could in fact be vital for learning.

Read the full story here.

Posted by Helen Pearson on February 13, 2006
Categories: | | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (1)

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://blogs.nature.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/222

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Instant replay may help to mould memories:

» Mold from Mold
Mold uses enzymes to digest nutrients from other organic Frequently Asked Questions About Mold answers concerns a... [Read More]

Tracked on May 13, 2006 08:51 AM

Comments

I'm not shure why this should seem so suprising. If you make a journey to a new place, as soon as you get their your frame of refernce and focus shifts to the perspective that you need to find your way back. When I drive somewhere (via directions or someone sitting next to me navigating) I usuallay end up reconstructing the steps to get there in reverse order so I am prepared for the drive home. Does this necessarily imply that the specific technique might apply to more general non-linear learning?

Posted by: Steve Bratt | February 13, 2006 04:38 PM

By playing the sequence backwards, are the rats still associating things (e.g. the presence of other objects, light values, noises) with the reward, or does that come later, while sleeping, during the forward playback? In other words, at what point does the ritual of the experience become ingrained?

Posted by: Sean Ewing | February 13, 2006 04:41 PM

My first thought when I saw this is that it's time-reversal for signal enhancement, similar to what's done with sonar in complex environments. If a number of receiving locations simultaneously play back their received signals in precise time-reversed order, the signals will converge in correct phase at the origin(s), as if the emitted signal were reversing its outward dispersal. The reversed signal is greatly amplified near the origin, so it may be a way to reinforce the pathways along the signal path.

This does require precise synchronization though, so I don't know how applicable it might be.

Posted by: Kendall Willets | February 13, 2006 05:40 PM

shhh.. m thinking..

Posted by: ratty | February 13, 2006 10:46 PM

Excuse my english. I´m german. But back to the topic. Normaly neurons are connected in a way, that their information is coded into a pattern, step by step. Another problem is information only moves in one direction in the brain. There is no backward or two way communication system and therefore no rewind. What the authors are probably meaning. The different objects and places are attentionally listed in the brain. And this list is being recited backwards.

Posted by: Karl Koeppl | February 13, 2006 10:55 PM

co-author Matt Wilson thinks
my 1969 theory is highly relevant to this research
1) enter "Classic Papers in
Sleep and Learning" in google
2)at the Duke faculty website, scroll down to
Ribeiro (Sidarta Ribeiro)
and click "Classic Papers..
David Bryson, MD (Yale ' 63)

Posted by: David Bryson, MD (Yale ' 63) | February 14, 2006 01:42 PM

Fascinating work - now there's a neuroscientific basis for the long-known phenomenon of "distributed learning". Maybe now Superbowl commercials will be followed by a blank screen. "This break is brought to you by the advertiser whose commercial you just saw." ;)

Posted by: NeuroGuy | February 16, 2006 01:09 PM

In my opinion one thing is learning and one thing is the electrical activity of the brain. There's only one direction in the cognitive behaviour of the brain, everything is linked with a succession of frames which are linked together in a sort continuous concept flow. With much probability this is something linked to the building of new neuronal ways and a long-term memory.

Posted by: Gianluca Basso | February 16, 2006 03:22 PM

I have been training dogs for over 30 years, and the idea that you put the dog up (rest) after a successful exercise has been around for at least that long, probably longer. When we train our search dogs we ALWAYS tell our handlers "that was great - put the dog up so he can think about what he just learned." I wonder where that little bit of wisdom came from?

Charlotte

Posted by: C. Allmann | February 16, 2006 05:15 PM

Interesting comment about dog feeding, I rode horses and it was similar with them. But, I wonder how much of this neural sequence we are aeeing has to do with the reward, rather then break? Obviously threr has to be a reward if that rats are willing to fun through the maze, but still...

Posted by: Curren | March 1, 2006 06:44 AM

Learning is nothing else as a electrical activity of the brain. Understanding the way (how) information is transformed into memories is very important. The hippocampus is nothing else, as a activation system combining metainformation to a picture. Through the mechanismen of backward (rewinding) activation explains how memories are built.

Posted by: Karl Koeppl | April 8, 2006 11:12 PM

Post a comment

Comments will be reviewed by staff before being published. You can be as critical or controversial as you like, but please don't get personal or offensive, and do keep it brief. Excessively long entries may be cropped. Remember this is for feedback and discussion - not for publishing papers or press releases.

We strongly encourage you to use your real, full name. Email addresses are required: this is just in case we need to discuss your comment with you privately. They won’t be published.


Please enter the numbers you see below - this helps us to cut down on spam. Note that attempting to post within 30 seconds of hitting ‘preview’ or ‘post’ can cause the system to think you are spamming the site. If you are having trouble with this system, you can instead e-mail a comment to 'inthefield at nature.com'.

Search