Published On: November 20th, 2020|

Edutopia – Youki Terada

“Recent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies reveal the underlying neural machinery at work. In a 2018 study, neuroscientists at Caltech discovered that mistakes set off an almost instantaneous chain reaction of productive brain activity. Even before the conscious mind is aware of the error, the researchers found, one set of neurons—called “error neurons,” the neural forerunners of mistakes—begin to fire. Fifty milliseconds later, a phalanx of “conflict neurons” respond, signaling the effort to resolve inconsistent pieces of information. In rapid-fire succession, the brain of a person making an error lights up with the kind of activity that encodes information more deeply.” (more)