Analysis of fMRI data showing neural changes associated with learning new concepts.
Code snippets of machine learning classification of brain states associated with the incremental learning of features of new concepts (extinct animals); and representational similarity analysis revealing the informational content of the newly implanted neural representations underlying the new animal concept knowledge.
Results documented in journal article titled "Monitoring the growth of the neural representations of new animal concepts," published in Human Brain Mapping.
Media coverage: "Neuroscientists capture the moment a brain records an idea," Wired UK.
Although enormous progress has recently been made in identifying the neural representations of individual object concepts, relatively little is known about the growth of a neural knowledge representation as a novel object concept is being learned. In this fMRI study, the growth of the neural representations of eight individual extinct animal concepts was monitored as participants learned two features of each animal, namely its habitat (i.e., a natural dwelling or scene) and its diet or eating habits. Dwelling/scene information and diet/eating-related information have each been shown to activate their own characteristic brain regions. Several converging methods were used here to capture the emergence of the neural representation of a new animal feature within these characteristic, a priori-specified brain regions. These methods include statistically reliable identification (classification) of the eight newly acquired multivoxel patterns, analysis of the neural representational similarity among the newly learned animal concepts, and conventional GLM assessments of the activation in the critical regions. Moreover, the representation of a recently learned feature showed some durability, remaining intact after another feature had been learned. This study provides a foundation for brain research to trace how a new concept makes its way from the words and graphics used to teach it, to a neural representation of that concept in a learner's brain.