The neuroscience of learning - Halo Neuroscience

What happens in the brain when you learn?

To learn anything, such as math, a language, guitar, or how to dribble a basketball. You need to create and strengthen neural pathways in your brain.

Neural Pathway
A Neural Pathway connects one part of the brain or nervous system to another, facilitating the transmission of signals between neurons.

Think about shooting a free throw in basketball. That feeling when you know you’ve got it down and don’t even have to think about it, that is muscle memory.

Muscle Memory
Muscle memory lives in the brain, not the muscles. Your brain controls everything your muscles do. And it does this by activating specific neural pathways for every movement. These are functional pathways, neurons working together to achieve a goal.

Neuron
Neurons are the brains cells that receive input, send commands, and process signals. (Also called Neurones or Nerve Cells.)

Say it’s your first time shooting a free throw, you don’t yet have a pathway for that movement in your brain. You need to create it.

Analogy:

Skill level - Poor (Lost in the Forest)
When you’re first learning, your brain is like a forest full of trees and dense foliage, with no clear pathway between point A (The command) and point B (The movement).

Skill level - Average (Dirt Trail)
As you learn the mechanics of shooting a free throw, you create a dirt trail through the forest, allowing you to shoot the free throw as you have now created the pathway in your brain. But you probably don’t land shots because it is so new.

Skill level - Good (Dirt Road)
In order to improve your free throw, you need to strengthen and refine the dirt trail. You do this by practicing the free throw. Practice gradually widens the trail through the trees, turning it into a dirt road between A and B.

Skill level - Great (Paved Road)
With more practice, you start to become pretty good at free throws. You don’t have to think about the mechanics as much, that’s because the pathway gets stronger after each practice rep. With even more practice, the dirt road turns into a paved road connecting A and B. Now, when you step up to the line to shoot your hoop, you don’t even have to think about it.

Skill level - Master (Highway)
Eventually, with enough practice, what started as a trail has now become a full-blown highway connecting the pathway from point A to point B. Now you’re a master at swishing almost every throw. And the movement is completely second nature:

“Plasticity”
Scientists call this plasticity. And it’s your brain’s innate ability to create and strengthen new connections between neurons. (These connections were the path through the forest.)

This is Neuroscience.

“The Neuroscience of Learning” YouTube, Uploaded by Halo Neuroscience, 08/02/2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nWMP68DqHE.