Remember more by taking breaks
Longer breaks during learning lead to more stable activation patterns in
the brain.

Date:
July 29, 2021
Source:
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
Summary:
We remember things longer if we take breaks during learning,
referred to as the spacing effect. Scientists gained deeper insight
into the neuronal basis for this phenomenon in mice. With longer
intervals between learning repetitions, mice reuse more of the same
neurons as before -- instead of activating different ones. Possibly,
this allows the neuronal connections to strengthen with each
learning event, such that knowledge is stored for a longer time.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
Many of us have experienced the following: the day before an exam, we try
to cram a huge amount of information into our brain. But just as quickly
as we acquired it, the knowledge we have painstakingly gained is gone
again. The good news is that we can counteract this forgetting. With
expanded time intervals between individual learning events, we retain
the knowledge for a longer time.


==========================================================================
But what happens in the brain during the spacing effect, and why is taking breaks so beneficial for our memory? It is generally thought that during learning, neurons are activated and form new connections. In this way,
the learned knowledge is stored and can be retrieved by reactivating the
same set of neurons. However, we still know very little about how pauses positively influence this process - even though the spacing effect was described more than a century ago and occurs in almost all animals.

Annet Glas and Pieter Goltstein, neurobiologists in the team of
Mark Hu"bener and Tobias Bonhoeffer, investigated this phenomenon in
mice. To do this, the animals had to remember the position of a hidden chocolate piece in a maze. On three consecutive opportunities, they were allowed to explore the maze and find their reward - including pauses
of varying lengths. "Mice that were trained with the longer intervals
between learning phases were not able to remember the position of the
chocolate as quickly," explains Annet Glas. "But on the next day, the
longer the pauses, the better was the mice's memory." During the maze
test, the researchers additionally measured the activity of neurons in
the prefrontal cortex. This brain region is of particular interest for
learning processes, as it is known for its role in complex thinking tasks.

Accordingly, the scientists showed that inactivation of the prefrontal
cortex impaired the mice's performance in the maze.

"If three learning phases follow each other very quickly, we intuitively expected the same neurons to be activated," Pieter Goltstein says. "After
all, it is the same experiment with the same information. However, after
a long break, it would be conceivable that the brain interprets the
following learning phase as a new event and processes it with different neurons." However, the researchers found exactly the opposite when they compared the neuronal activity during different learning phases. After
short pauses, the activation pattern in the brain fluctuated more than
compared to long pauses: In fast successive learning phases, the mice
activated mostly different neurons. When taking longer breaks, the same
neurons active during the first learning phase were used again later.

Reactivating the same neurons could allow the brain to strengthen the connections between these cells in each learning phase - there is no need
to start from scratch and establish the contacts first. "That's why we
believe that memory benefits from longer breaks," says Pieter Goltstein.

Thus, after more than a century, the study provides the first insights
into the neuronal processes that explain the positive effect of
learning breaks. With spaced learning, we may reach our goal more
slowly, but we benefit from our knowledge for much longer. Hopefully,
we won't have forgotten this by the time we take our next exam! ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Annet Glas, Mark Hu"bener, Tobias Bonhoeffer, Pieter
M. Goltstein. Spaced
training enhances memory and prefrontal ensemble stability in mice.

Current Biology, 2021; DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.06.085 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/07/210729122037.htm

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