“To learn, one must establish meaningful relationships with what we already know”

An interview with Marta Portero Tresserra, neuroscientist from the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona

The teacher must connect the new knowledge that students acquire with what they already have in their long-term memory, explains this scientist specialized in learning and memory. With her, we discuss the brain circuits associated with the innate and those that are reinforced with new experiences or thanks to regular contact with music, languages, and numbers.

Analía Iglesias / SINC

“We do not know everything there is to know, by no means, but we have begun to establish the foundations of what learning means for the brain,” is read in the first pages of the book 10 Key Ideas: Neuroscience and Education. Contributions for the Classroom. This 2018 work points out that education is “extensive,” as it is exercised both inside and outside the classrooms, and that emotions exercise a particular influence at each stage of a person’s development.

Marta Portero Tresserra, co-author of this book, is PhD in neuroscience and researcher in the Group of Neurobiology of Learning and Report of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) Institute of Neurosciences. Portero emphasizes that her work consists of trying to translate the findings of neuroscience and psychology to education to help teachers make informed decisions. We discuss with her what can already be learnt in neuroscience.

In her work of linking science and educators, what should teachers understand about children, teenagers, or university students, to better reach them?

At this point, the process to highlight is that of consolidating memory. We learn by connecting new learnings with what we already know. Hence the importance of the teacher knowing what prior knowledge we have about what he is teaching us and contributing to establishing meaningful relationships between the new knowledge and what the student already has in his long-term memory. It is relevant that the teacher helps the student make these connections with specific tasks because that is how knowledge is consolidated in the long term.

Neuroplasticity is related to the structural, biochemical, and functional changes of the brain circuits based on our life experiences and behaviours

For example, if I want you to learn about a part of the brain called the hippocampus, as a teacher I have to try to facilitate that meaningful relationship and talk to you, for instance, about Alzheimer’s, which is something you already have stored. I tell you then that that disease causes the hippocampus neurodegeneration. That connection can be fundamental.

How are the mechanisms of learning and memory intertwined in the brain?

We have many different learning and memory systems. Depending on the learning and memory system that we are analysing, there are different brain circuits involved.

If we organize memory, we can differentiate sensory memory from working or long-term memory, each of them with its neural circuits. But, in addition, within each of these circuits, such as the long-term memory, we have structures that are behind learning or acting for explicit memory (with two subtypes) and others that support implicit memory, where eight different systems are counted.

How are the findings of neuroscience and psychology translated into education?

When asked what I can do, the answer is another question: What type of learning are we talking about? Because this depends on the discipline: whether we are talking about playing the piano or learning science or even remembering an experience, for example, and also on the level (or practice) of the learner. Each learning and memory system has specific neural circuits. Therefore, we learn differently in each case.

Is the same brain architecture activated in all people for a given activity?

It is very similar. For example, to learn to play the piano, the difference is whether you have experience as a performer or are a novice. That is crucial. In a novice, different structures are activated than in an expert in an instrument. That is to say, different circuits are activated depending on each person’s level of expertise. Practice and training will strengthen and grow the brain connections of the music circuits. This is what we can see in a brain and similarly it occurs with all types of learning.

So, is cognitive effort, and also emotions (fear, stress), different in the face of a new experience?

This is what is called neuroplasticity processes. Brain (and neuronal) plasticity has to do with the structural, biochemical, and functional changes of the brain circuits based on our life experiences and our behaviours. Our brain, and especially the connections between neurons, change due to experience, which is what makes us have more connections, more efficient and faster.

Precisely, because of the importance of experience in neural connections, we talk about the “revolution of seniors”. How does the passage of time operate in cognitive functions?

There are some cognitive functions that increase with age and others that seem to decrease. For example, we score at the highest level in life around the ages of 50-60 in giving definitions or explanations about a concept. On the other hand, there are tasks of working memory and information processing (retaining many numbers, for example) in which we score the highest around the age of 20.

We score at the highest level in life around the ages of 50-60 in giving definitions or explanations about a concept

Regarding foreign languages, how much do our hearing and the formation of the vocal apparatus influence issues such as pronouncing words in a new language?

In the case of languages, we go through periods of sensitivity regarding the identification of sounds. To begin with, we are only able to identify all the sounds of all the languages in the world, which would be universal language, during the first two years of life (hence the term mother tongue). We are prepared to discriminate all existing sounds only as babies. From that moment on, there will be some phonemes that we can no longer differentiate, and we will be losing this ability throughout childhood. This is an inability for phonetic discrimination that we adults suffer if we have not previously been exposed to a language.

Therefore, it is important that language teachers understand what the learning limits of children and teenagers are.

From the language you are in contact to, the one your parents speak, and until 6 or 7 years old we are in a good moment to learn languages in an optimal way. From the age of 7 and for the rest of our lives, we can still learn a new language, even at 80 or 100 years old, although the cognitive effort changes. At 5 years old, children do it without effort.

The specialization of neurons in certain numbers is a phenomenon called numerosity. It seems that at the moment of birth we already have brain circuits with certain numerical capacities

We know that there are neurons specialized in certain numbers, for example, in three or ten, perhaps it is an evolutionary advantage against predators. Is that numerosity?

Certainly. The specialization of neurons in certain numbers is a phenomenon called numerosity. It seems that at the moment of birth we already have brain circuits with certain numerical capacities. Innately, we make differences in quantities, because there is a certain mathematical knowledge of estimations. They are like precursor mechanisms of mathematical ability and calculation. These knowledge change when we do algebra and calculations tasks, as other structures are activated. In mathematics we would talk about the parietal lobe, the temporal lobe and also the prefrontal cortex, which house the circuits that participate in algebra, mathematics and geometry.

Hence the cognitive damage that can appear after an injury or a traumatic event…

The functional level injuries that the person is going to have depend on the part of the cortex that is damaged. We know, for example, that the left hemisphere’s temporal lobe participates in language comprehension and we can be left with language alterations. If the damage affects the parietal lobe, the deficits will have to do with calculation and attentional processes.

There is also talk of an understanding of certain geometric structures as something intuitive and innate, since people who live in some isolated villages can understand geometric concepts from the perception of points, lines, triangles…

Yes, it seems that geometric concepts have a very innate component in our species. This has been investigated with tests in children or in different cultures, and it has to do with the ability to perceive geometric structures naturally. They are called geometric intuitions.

What we call neuroscience is not only research where there are biochemists and a molecule that is released. That has little relevance for the educator. The necessary research comes from cognitive psychology and psychobiology

What would you say to the statement “we are not just brain”?

The scientific community maintains that this implies talking about what we call ‘mind’, which would be equivalent to separating the mind and our subjective consciousness (about ourselves and our surroundings) from what would be the brain, hormones, that is to say, the body. From science we know that the mind and consciousness arise from the activity of the brain. In reality, our subjective consciousness is a consequence and fruit of brain activity, which receives information from the environment and the body. With that, it generates our consciousness, our thoughts, our emotions and determines and decides our behaviours.

Finally, talking about education, how can psychology and psychopedagogy contribute to the same objective with neuroscience?

In fact, what we call neuroscience is not only research where there are biochemists and a molecule that is released. That has little relevance for the educator. The necessary research comes from cognitive psychology and psychobiology, so that those who teach understand the basic psychological processes to promote learning. Psychobiology is what gives the physiological basis of those learning processes, emotions, writing, stress, wakefulness, even the different stages of sleep and dreams themselves.