Exercising Your Brain: Training-Related Brain Plasticity

Abstract

Learning and brain plasticity are fundamental properties of the nervous system, and they hold considerable promise when it comes to learning a second language faster, maintaining our perceptual and cognitive skills as we age, or recovering lost functions after brain injury. Learning is critically dependent on experience and the environment that the learner has to face. A central question then concerns the types of experience that favor learning and brain plasticity. Existing research identifies three main challenges in the field. First, not all improvements in performance are durable enough to be relevant. Second, the conditions that optimize learning during the acquisition phase are not necessarily those that optimize retention. Third, learning is typically highly specific, showing little transfer from the trained task to even closely related tasks. Against these limiting factors, the emergence of complex learning environments provides promising new avenues when it comes to optimizing learning in real-world settings.