NIMH Press Release: Awake Mental Replay of Past Experiences Critical for Learning
National Institute of Mental Health sent this bulletin at 05/04/2012 07:58 AM EDTHaving trouble viewing this email? View it as a Web page.
Awake mental replay of past experiences is essential for making informed choices, suggests a study in rats. Without it, the animals’ memory-based decision-making faltered. Scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health blocked learning from, and acting on, past experience by selectively suppressing replay – encoded as split-second bursts of neuronal activity in the memory hubs of rats performing a maze task. Similar brain activity patterns have been detected in humans during similar situations.
