Summary: Researchers have identified a possible neurological biomarker for long term learning. The brain wave biomarker could allow educators to attempt new educational techniques to improve long term learning by measuring the results via EEG testing.
Source: Boston University School of Medicine.
For the first time, researchers have discovered a possible biomarker for long term learning.
Could this new discovery help reshape how students learn and how they are taught?
Researchers at the VA Boston Healthcare System (VA Boston) and Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) believe their breakthrough may lead to different educational techniques to improve long-lasting learning (information retained for a lifetime) in the classroom.
The ability to move newly learned knowledge into long-term memory is crucial to allow past experiences to help influence future actions. “In medicine, long-term learning is essential as life and death decisions may be based on information learned years earlier during medical school. At this time, there is no good biomarker that has been correlated with retention of long-term learning,” explained senior author Andrew Budson, MD, chief, cognitive & behavioral neurology at VA Boston and professor of neurology at BUSM.
The researchers studied first-year BUSM students undertaking an introductory anatomy class. They measured students brain responses to anatomical terms using electroencephalography (EEG) before starting the course, immediately following the course and six months after the completion of the course. “We found that a spike in the late positive component (LPC) brain wave correlated with one’s ability to retain the anatomical information long-term,” said corresponding author Katherine Turk, MD, director of graduate medical education for neurology at VA Boston and instructor of neurology at BUSM.
According to the researchers, this brain-wave biomarker has the potential to allow educators to try out different educational techniques to improve long-lasting learning by measuring the results using special EEG event-related tests. Thus, these findings may have relevance for educational curriculum development. “Our results allow for various teaching methods to be tried in a classroom setting and measured immediately at the end of the course–possibly even at the end of a particular lesson,” added Turk.
Further implications of this discovery may result in incorporating teaching techniques in the classroom that produce the greatest LPC. Use of such biomarker-proven teaching techniques could facilitate education that will last for a lifetime.
Funding: Funding supported by the Veterans Administration Merit Review Award (5I01CX000736-03) and a National Institute on Aging grant P30 AG013846.
Source: Gina DiGravio – Boston University School of Medicine
Publisher: Organized by NeuroscienceNews.com.
Image Source: NeuroscienceNews.com image is in the public domain.
Original Research: Abstract for “Late Positive Component Event-related Potential Amplitude Predicts Long-term Classroom-based Learning” by Katherine W. Turk, Ala’a A. Elshaar, Rebecca G. Deason, Nadine C. Heyworth, Corrine Nagle, Bruno Frustace, Sean Flannery, Ann Zumwalt and Andrew E. Budson in Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. Published May 23 2018
doi:10.1162/jocn_a_01285
[cbtabs][cbtab title=”MLA”]Boston University School of Medicine “Possible Marker Found to Predict Long Term Learning.” NeuroscienceNews. NeuroscienceNews, 13 June 2018.
<https://neurosciencenews.com/long-term-learning-marker-9337/>.[/cbtab][cbtab title=”APA”]Boston University School of Medicine (2018, June 13). Possible Marker Found to Predict Long Term Learning. NeuroscienceNews. Retrieved June 13, 2018 from https://neurosciencenews.com/long-term-learning-marker-9337/[/cbtab][cbtab title=”Chicago”]Boston University School of Medicine “Possible Marker Found to Predict Long Term Learning.” https://neurosciencenews.com/long-term-learning-marker-9337/ (accessed June 13, 2018).[/cbtab][/cbtabs]
Abstract
Late Positive Component Event-related Potential Amplitude Predicts Long-term Classroom-based Learning
It is difficult to predict whether newly learned information will be retrievable in the future. A biomarker of long-lasting learning, capable of predicting an individual’s future ability to retrieve a particular memory, could positively influence teaching and educational methods. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were investigated as a potential biomarker of long-lasting learning. Prior ERP studies have supported a dual-process model of recognition memory that categorizes recollection and familiarity as distinct memorial processes with distinct ERP correlates. The late positive component is thought to underlie conscious recollection and the frontal N400 signal is thought to reflect familiarity [Yonelinas, A. P. Components of episodic memory: The contribution of recollection and familiarity. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B, Biological Sciences, 356, 1363–1374, 2001]. Here we show that the magnitude of the late positive component, soon after initial learning, is predictive of subsequent recollection of anatomical terms among medical students 6 months later.
