The Neuroscience of Learning

How do we learn? What are the factors that come into play?

From the point of view of neurobiology, learning involves changing the brain, some factors might be:

• Stress

• Adequate sleep

• Nutrition

• Exercise

Active learning takes advantage of processes that stimulate multiple neural connections in the brain and promote memory.

For optimal learning to occur, the brain needs conditions under which it is able to change in response to stimuli (neuroplasticity) and able to produce new neurons (neurogenesis).

The most effective learning involves recruiting multiple regions of the brain for the learning task. These regions are associated with such functions as memory, the various senses, volitional control, and higher levels of cognitive functioning.

And once we know this... can we hack our brain to learn more?

Speakers:

Dr. David Delany (https://ie.linkedin.com/in/drdaviddelany)

Talk: Superintelligence: The Past, Present, And Future of Human Mental Abilities

Dr. Delany holds a PhD in computational neuroscience (TCD) and has a research focus on the design of novel clinical brain training interventions for psychiatric disorders and cognitive enhancement. He runs accelerated expertise and structured innovation workshops for research staff from a range of organisations including TCD, Cornell University, and Intel.

Dr. Graham Healy (https://www.insight-centre.org/users/graham-healy)

Dr Graham Healy is a researcher at The Insight Centre for Data Analytics. His work focuses on BCI (Brain-computer Interfaces), biosignal processing and visual perception. His PhD work was concerned with the utilisation of BCI (Brain Computer Interfaces) for image search and labelling tasks.