learning

A team of scientists unveils new insights into how the hippocampus plays a critical role in human learning and adaptation.

Even bees need dance lessons! Bees use their “waggle dance” to point each other toward food, and they need lessons to perform it properly.

by Cheshta Bhatiafigures by Jasmin Joseph-Chazan Ubiquitous actions that we perform in our daily lives, like tying our shoelaces or playing basketball, rely on our brain’s ability to learn and execute motor skills; this ability to knit movements into…

by Ariel Hairstonfigures by MacKenzie Mauger Our lives are stuffed with opportunities for excitement and stimulation. You might wake up in the morning and find yourself staring at your modest collection of succulents, or that small oil painting you…

Dopamine is not just a happy hormone -- it is also heavily involved in learning and memory. Recent studies are showing that dopamine plays a key role in auditory learning in songbirds.

Hannah Smith is a Biology PhD student at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Hannah is interested in the biological pathways that regulate aging, and whether we can target these pathways to make people healthier in old age (but she’s currently…

by Hannah Smith Erich Jarvis, photo by Frank Veronsky Have you ever wondered why you can teach a parakeet to talk, but you can’t teach a dog or a cat? Dr. Erich Jarvis has spent his scientific career studying the brain pathways required for this…

Large bumblebees remember flowers with high sugar nectar better, while small bumblebees remember the locations of all flowers equally.

The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is an area of the brain located in the prefrontal cortex, which, as its name suggests, is the front part of the brain. The OFC is my favorite area of the brain, partially because it was the first region I studied, but…

A group at Toulouse University in France has found that slime molds are capable of passing on learned behaviors from population to another. After learning how to navigate around an unpleasant stimulus in order to reach its food, the slime mold was merged…