ADULT LEANING AND THE BRAIN

There is general consensus that the brain is the important element of anatomy in our machinery of learning. This magnificent organ is perhaps the most misunderstood part of the human body. There is a whole raft of mystic around what is does, how it does it and indeed why it does it. For many of us it represents the very soul of a person.

However, the brain is a chemical and cellular machine, which functions as one of the most complex and specialist biological machines we have ever encountered.

The brain is made up individual nerve cells, or neurons. These cells do not function individually, in isolation, rather in clusters, or to use an electricians analogy, as circuits. The billions of neurons in the human nervous system ‘work’ by transmitting and receiving ‘messages’ with other neurons. In general neurons are only connected to a few specific recipients. However in some cases an individual neuron can be connected to as many as 10,000 other neurons. These connections break into 3 distinct types of circuits:
1. Hierarchical circuits, which in simple terms are the sensory systems
2. Local circuits, which act as ‘filters within a hierarchical circuit
3. Single-source/Divergent circuits where a single neuron has many
connections, across many hierarchical circuits.

The actual link between neurons is called a synapse, where electrical charge is passed from one cell to another. Actually there is a gap at this site, as neurons do not connect directly. We will explore this site more later on. The learning occurs at the synapse level in our brains. The information is transferred across this gap through Synaptic Transmission. This process is where the transmitting neuron secretes a chemical call a neurotransmitter which carries the message across the gap (about 20 billionth of a meter) to the receiving cell. Where neurons should NOT connect, then the reverse happens and neuroinhibiter is used which stops the message passing across the gap. Again this is a chemical process.

In broad terms learning is the number, speed and strength of the connections of neural circuits. We learn by either adding new circuits, reinforcing circuits or making new links across existing circuits. There divergent circuits are perhaps the most important type of circuits in our brain. Yet today this type of neural circuit is the least researched and understood.
So lets explore how the ‘transmission’ occurs at the synapse level. Firstly a cell is ‘excited’ by an incoming message. This is caused by the transmitting connecting cell ‘sending it’s message. This causes the electrical state of our cell to change, making it more positively charged than it is normally when at rest. This change in electrical charge then triggers gates to open along the cell so sodium can ‘rush’ into the cell. Sodium has a positive electrical charge and INCREASES the neurones positive charge still further. It is drawn into the cell because the cell has a more negative charge and sodium is attracted in. When watched it looks like an express train of positive charge running along the neurone, from the ‘excited end’ to the opposite end of the cell, which will ‘excite’ the next cell.

This ‘excitement’ then causes a neurotransmitter to be released by the neurone into the synaptic gap. The neurotransmitter then ‘locks’ into receptors of the new cell and causes this cell to be ‘excited’. This then becomes a chain reaction until an inhibitor is released.
We are familiar with these amino acid transmitters, such as Dopamine, Serotonin and Endorphins, each has a special function. For instance Dopamine regulates emotions and Endorphin is often considered to make you ‘happy’. Actually Endorphin is very similar to Morphine, from which we get Heroin, and is a way that the brain can ‘suppress’ pain. The reason peole consider it a ‘happy’ chemical is the initial elated feeling, but like Morphine it is actually a depressant, which is why it helps with pain and actually is an inhibitor for ‘pain’ signals in the brain.

So, how does this affect us with ADULT LEARNING? We all have ‘set circuits’ in our brain, for instance, happy, fun and motivated. Learning, then, is making new circuits or reinforcing existing circuits. So in learning we need to provide the brain with a way of connecting electrical signals between new cells, via the synapse, or work more effectively the existing circuits.
Really clever learning technologies then, by design, use existing circuits or (knowledge, skill or memories) and links these to new knowledge, skills or memories. In this way we can hasten the learning the process and reinforce the new learning so make it easier to recall at alter time. So for instance, we use this in to Adult Learning and our finance courses. For most people these are horrible and nasty and as a result people keep away from finance as much as possible, so never really connecting the new circuits in their brain. We on the other hand make them fun and link the circuits for fun with the new learning, so we get more useful neurotransmitters released. We then reinforce this new link with more enjoyment, of a kind that adults uses lots of times, outside the learning, for instance, music, games and fun activity. Add in lots of discussion and simplicity and the brain will self reinforce the new circuits very quickly.