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Context Controls Learning

You’re better off practicing new skills when the coach is screaming at you in practice than when the crowd is heckling you during the game.

Department of Neurobiology chair and DIBS faculty Steve Lisberger and his team have uncovered how one’s local context controls learning in the brain and allows one to learn a motor skill. Dr. Lisberger’s team found that the precise timing of cellular responses in the cerebellum, a part of the brain important for mastering new skills, controls the strength of learning.

The published article appears in Nature.