A new study shows that taking small breaks while learning helps the brain to embrace new skills
Don't store avocado like this: it's dangerousA new study shows that taking short breaks helps the brain learn new skills. Scholars have found that our brains would reproduce the experience many times overlearning new skills, aiding in memorization.
In a group of volunteers, researchers at the National Institutes of Health mapped the brain activity that occurs while learning a new skill (such as playing a new song on the piano) and found that taking short breaks from practice is the key to learning. Indeed, during rest, the volunteers' brains replicated many times faster versions of the activity they were exercising: the more the brain replicated the activity, the better it performed once the break was over - which suggests. that rest strengthens the memory of an action.
The results of the study suggest that rest while awake plays a very important role in learning new skills - he explains Leonardo G. Cohen, author of the study. - It seems to be the moment when our brain compresses and consolidates the memory of what we have just learned. Understanding the significance of natural experience reproduction can help not only understand how we learn new skills, but neurologically damaged patients can also regain lost skills.
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The researchers monitored (through an encephalogram) the brain waves of 33 right-handed volunteers as they learned to type a code using their left hand. After ten seconds of exercise, a ten second pause followed, and this exercise / pause cycle was repeated 35 times. After the first attempts, the speed with which the participants typed the code increased a lot (around the eleventh cycle), but not thanks to the training, but rather thanks to the pauses that allowed a crystallization of the ability in the brain.
(Credits: https://cell.com)
Furthermore, it was observed that the improvement in learned skill was more important than the improvement obtained after a night's rest - traditionally related to the memorization of activities learned during the day. This is because in awake rest there is a decrease in the extent of brain waves (beta waves), which allow better and more effective memorization.
Fonte: Cell Reports
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