Tool Use Can Instantly Rewire the Brain
Why does expert tool use require practice? Because we need time and repetition—with feedback so that we learn by trial and error—to enable this remapping. That can be costly, as new drivers (or their parents) are dismayed to find, since it might take a scrape or two to figure out how far exactly one must be from another car to avoid an accident. But in fact, our brains are exquisitely prepared to accommodate new somatosensory inputs, extending the size and shape of our bodily edges to enable us to acquire new skills. The feedback we receive from trying to use chopsticks is in getting them to do what we intend. When our intentions become reflected in successful actions, the remapping of our body space becomes strengthened and consolidated. Other studies indicate that such trial and error periods, punctuated by success and repeated trials separated by sleep, are particularly important in enabling neural plasticity. 2 Over time, we move from a clumsy attempt to use two sticks to the sensation that the chopsticks are an extension of our hands. This change in mental representation with expertise was first described by psychologists over one hundred years ago and has been well characterized by many others since. 3 This constant process of experience-dependent brain remapping has happened to us since we were toddlers learning how to wear our first pair of shoes, to school children learning how to use a pencil, in skiing or painting or flipping a burger or playing the piano. There are changes in the way that cells in the brain respond to inputs that underlie this expertise— some of which are restricted to parts of the brain that control movement but others that unquestionably occur in sensory areas
Why does expert tool use require practice? Because we need time and repetition—with feedback so that we learn by trial and error—to enable this remapping. That can be costly, as new drivers (or their parents) are dismayed to find, since it might take a scrape or two to figure out how far exactly one must be from another car to avoid an accident. But in fact, our brains are exquisitely prepared to accommodate new somatosensory inputs, extending the size and shape of our bodily edges to enable us to acquire new skills. The feedback we receive from trying to use chopsticks is in getting them to do what we intend. When our intentions become reflected in successful actions, the remapping of our body space becomes strengthened and consolidated. Other studies indicate that such trial and error periods, punctuated by success and repeated trials separated by sleep, are particularly important in enabling neural plasticity. 2 Over time, we move from a clumsy attempt to use two sticks to the sensation that the chopsticks are an extension of our hands. This change in mental representation with expertise was first described by psychologists over one hundred years ago and has been well characterized by many others since. 3 This constant process of experience-dependent brain remapping has happened to us since we were toddlers learning how to wear our first pair of shoes, to school children learning how to use a pencil, in skiing or painting or flipping a burger or playing the piano. There are changes in the way that cells in the brain respond to inputs that underlie this expertise— some of which are restricted to parts of the brain that control movement but others that unquestionably occur in sensory areas
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