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To learn something new, you need to practice, practice, practice, says common sense, reinforcing the idea that "practice makes perfect".
But a series of scientific studies have shown that incessant practice may not be the most efficient way to learn a new skill: the brain needs rest to consolidate newly acquired knowledge and transform it from a transient memory to a lasting memory.
One of the most recent discoveries is that small breaks interspersed with practicing the activity lead to large learning gains: the brain takes advantage of these breaks to perform a super-fast mental "replay" of what has just been learned, reinforcing the newly acquired skill.
These short breaks can be particularly productive for the brain of those who practice new, detailed and repetitive movements, such as athletes or musicians — or even patients who are trying to recover skills lost after a stroke (see later in the report).
"Imagine a scenario in which a person starts to learn to play a new song on the piano. We discovered that, during pauses, the brain repeats a 50 times faster version of the movements used to play the song, over and over again, which reinforces the connection of neurons in the areas associated with that new memory", explains researcher Leonardo Claudino to BBC News Brasil, one of the co-authors of a study on the subject carried out by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and published in 2021 in the journal Cell Reports.
In this study, he and other NIH researchers recorded the brain activity of 33 right-handed volunteers as they learned to type a sequence of numbers on the keyboard with their left hand. Volunteers had to type as many sequences as possible for ten seconds, and then take a ten-second break.
Some members of this same research team, led by scientist Marlene Bönstrup, had already observed in previous studies that, after brief breaks, volunteers improved the speed and accuracy with which they typed numerical sequences of this type.
Now, the objective was to understand what happens in the brain in this process. And, through magnetoencephalography exams, scientists were able to observe the rapid "replays" that the brain made of what it had just learned.
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"We discovered that consolidation happens on a much faster time scale than previously believed", points out Claudino. "A two-second skill becomes repeated in the brain on a millisecond scale."
By doing these "replays", the brain then consolidates the learning.
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The memory pathway in the brain
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Even before studying the effect of these short breaks, scientists already knew that the brain needed rest to consolidate memories — in practice, this involves transferring the memory from the hippocampus, where temporary records are kept, to areas of the neocortex, which records longer-lasting memories.
But, until these most recent discoveries, it was believed that it was only during sleep — when the brain is freer from external sensory stimuli — that this consolidation process took place.
With the new studies, Claudino points out, it is possible to see that memories are also consolidated almost simultaneously with practice — a process that seems to be complementary to what happens while we sleep.
But this is something that still needs to be confirmed by more research.
"Not much is known yet, and they are certainly physiologically different pauses. But perhaps sleep encodes a more complete experience — the entire context, who was there, what the environment was like. The quick pause perhaps records more minute details: the synergy between the fingers when typing, the movement. It's a hypothesis for someone to investigate in the future", ponders Claudino.
How to put it into practice
How, then, can we take practical advantage of the scientific knowledge accumulated so far?
"I see a more direct use when I think about sports practices or musical performance, which involve sessions in which the athlete or artist will perform the same movement several times", explains Claudino.
"A lesson to learn is: when starting to learn a new technique, avoid practicing until exhaustion, until failure. Instead, it is better to take breaks. Perfection will be achieved more quickly if you give your brain time to consolidate (the learning), instead of practicing endlessly aiming for perfection."
"Usually we learn a new technique by repeating it several times — you repeat, repeat, and there comes a time when you already know the sequences of movements that will produce the final activity. The idea is that, instead of practicing it until exhaustion, you do it ten times, for example, then take a break, and do it again."
The same reasoning can also guide pedagogical practices in schools or universities.
"In a teaching environment, perhaps the teacher, when introducing a fundamentally new concept, can think about the learning session already including these breaks. It is important that the student has these periods of rest, because his brain will be active, despite the rest — this is our discovery. His hippocampus and cortex will be carrying out these exchanges, which will consolidate recent learning", explains the researcher.
What is still not known for sure is the ideal length of a break for the optimal consolidation of new learning.
"This is one of the challenges of practical application", says Claudino, remembering that this may also depend on the type of skill learned and the individual characteristics of each practitioner.
But, in the NIH studies, those in which volunteers typed sequences on the keyboard, researchers observed that learning gains were greater when practice and intervals were of similar duration. For example, ten minutes of practice and ten minutes of break.
Claudino emphasizes, however, that these are controlled studies, carried out in the laboratory, so their conclusions do not necessarily translate exactly to real life.
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How to take a productive brain break?
Likewise, the fact that the experiments take place in completely controlled environments makes it difficult to have a "cake recipe" for the most efficient type of break to help the brain learn.
In the case of laboratory studies, during the break, each volunteer remained still, without typing on the computer. In real life, the researcher suggests giving your brain a little break from whatever it is learning.
"If the person is learning to play a song, the break would simply be to stop playing, think about something else or not carry out another activity that could interfere with that one — for example, don't try to learn another song when you're resting from the first, because you use the same regions and capabilities", he explains.
Other lines of research have also contributed to the science of learning — and bring complementary conclusions that can help consolidate knowledge.
In an interview with BBC News Brasil in 2020, cognitive psychology researcher Barbara Oakley, author of the book Learning to Learn, explained that the brain works in two different ways, which complement each other in learning: the focused mode (when we are paying attention to an exercise, a film or the teacher, for example) and the diffuse mode (when the brain is relaxed).
According to Oakley, the brain needs to switch between diffuse and focused mode to learn effectively. Relaxing the mind — whether by going for a walk or changing activities — therefore directly helps improve learning and problem solving.
"When you're stuck on a math assignment, the best thing to do is change your focus and study some geography. That way, you'll be able to get ahead when you come back to math," Oakley suggested.
stroke patients
Back to Claudino's research, one of the focuses in studying memory consolidation during short breaks is to help people who are recovering their skills after having suffered a stroke. This can happen in the future, optimizing rehabilitation sessions as much as possible.
"We now have a biological marker of when the brain is consolidating the skill and where this is happening", explains the scientist.
"We can think about developing a monitoring system while the person is undergoing occupational therapy or a neurostimulation or neuromodulation technique, and having the system maximize repetitions of the skill."
This optimal stimulus to the brain can make rehabilitation produce faster results, says Claudino.
"Our results suggest that it may be important to optimize the timing and configuration of rest intervals when implementing rehabilitation treatments in stroke patients or when learning to play the piano among normal volunteers," explained Leonardo Cohen, head of the laboratory responsible for this research at the NIH, in a statement.
These are, for now, still open fields of research, adds Claudino. The important thing is to understand that, even during rest, the brain never stops learning.
"What goes against common sense is that, when you are still, your brain is not still. We are still understanding this phenomenon, but (during these pauses) you occupy your brain with less stimulus processing and movement production. Then you give it that window of opportunity to consolidate what it is already learning."
This report was originally published on May 26, 2022.
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