npj Science of Learning Community: Digest #13

The npj Science of Learning Community presents research focussed on the mind, brain and education space. In October, our Journal authors developed an optimal online learning algorithm to improve student outcomes; and explained how emotionally charged memories form in the basolateral amygdala.

Designing educational technology around the individual needs of students is strategic to improving academic performance. Researchers have developed a quantitative model to track student learning, which considered the effects of practice and spacing. Authors, Luke Eglington and Phillip Pavlik, discuss whether tests with simulated and real students proved their predictions true or not in Easier practice can be more efficient.

Every day the human brain explores and learns from its environment. After receiving and processing information via neurons, learning changes their structure and function, and new information is recorded as memories. But why do some memories fade, while others stay strong? In a study led by Pankaj Sah, six different classes of interneurons in the basolateral amygdala were found to mediate ‘emotionally charged’ memories associated with learning. Jai Polepalli elaborates further on this discovery in The brain within the brain.