Because I really want the answer to be \u201cyes,\u201d I force myself to be extra skeptical when I look at the research. And even with all that extra skepticism, the answer is \u2013 for the most part \u2013 YES<\/a>!<\/p>\n How do we know?<\/p>\n Well, various researchers have people walk around \u2013 or sit still \u2013 and then do various mental tasks. Often (although not always), they do better after walking<\/em> than after sitting.<\/em><\/p>\n BOOM.<\/p>\n But wait! Wouldn\u2019t it be great to have more evidence than walkers’ \u201cperformance on mental tasks\u201d? Wouldn\u2019t it be great to know what\u2019s going on in their brains<\/em>?<\/p>\n I recently read a Twitter post about\u00a0this study<\/a>:<\/p>\n Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign had several 9 and 10-year-olds take various tests in reading comprehension, spelling, and math.<\/p>\n Researchers also had these students take tests on “attentional control” — which means, more or less, what it sounds like.<\/p>\n Students took these various tests once after sitting still<\/em> for 20 minutes, and another time after walking at a moderate pace<\/em> for 20 minutes.<\/p>\n Sure enough, these young students controlled their attention<\/strong> more effectively after walking than after sitting. And, they\u00a0did better on the reading comprehension<\/strong> test after walking than after sitting.<\/p>\n Now: here\u2019s the brain part.<\/p>\n Researchers also hooked students up to an electroencephalography (EEG) array while they took those tests.<\/p>\n EEG measures electrical activity on the outer-most layer of the brain, so \u2013 VERY roughly \u2013 it shows how various brain surfaces are acting at particular moments in time.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s where things get very technical. (Neuroscience is ALWAYS very technical.)<\/p>\n EEGs produce up-and-down squiggles; they look a bit like lie detector tests in the movies.<\/p>\n Research with adults<\/em> has consistently shown that exercise produces a change at the third<\/em> squiggle in various brain regions. Because that squiggle (sort of) goes up, it\u2019s called the \u201cthird positivity,\u201d or P3.<\/p>\n This P3 (third positive squiggle) correlates with better attentional control<\/em> in adults. Researchers hypothesized that they would get the same result with these young children.<\/em><\/p>\n Here\u2019s the big neuroscience news \u2013 researchers DID get the same results for children as addults<\/p>\n Changes in P3, induced by walking, took place when the students did better at attentional control.<\/p>\n So, why does this research finding matter?<\/p>\n If students’\u00a0minds<\/em> behave differently after walking \u2013 they perform better at attentional control \u2013 we would expect that their brains<\/em> behave differently.<\/p>\n Now we know: they do!<\/p>\n In the field, we call this pattern \u201cconverging evidence.\u201d Two very different kinds of research — psychology AND neuroscience — support the same conclusion.<\/p>\n Now we can be even more confident that walking benefits cognition \u2013 even though, as you remember, I\u2019m trying to be extra skeptical.<\/p>\n So, here we have the FIRST way that teachers can use neuroscience to support their teaching:<\/p>\n After psychology<\/strong> research suggests that a teaching suggestion might be beneficial,\u00a0neuroscience<\/strong> can provide converging evidence to make this idea even more persuasive.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n FANTASTIC. (By the way: I\u2019ll come back to this study about walking and attentional control at the end of this blog post.)<\/p>\n I said that I\u2019d seen two articles about neuroscience worth sharing. The first \u2013 as you\u2019ve seen \u2013 is very specific and researchy.<\/p>\n The second article \u2013 pointed out to me by my friend Rob McEntarffer<\/a> — spends time speculating, musing, and wondering.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Crudely speaking, this article<\/a> wonders if something Matrix<\/em>-like could happen. Could Laurence Fishburne ever download kung fu into Keanu Reeves?<\/p>\n The article, in WIRED Magazine, opens with a fascinating scene. Doctors have implanted electrodes in a patient\u2019s fusiform face area \u2013 the FFA. (Most neuroscientists think that the FFA helps the brain identify and recognize human faces.)<\/p>\n When the researchers stimulate the FFA, this patient \u2013 very briefly \u2013 sees human features on a blank box: an ear, a sideways smile, an eye.<\/p>\n In other words, electrical current applied to the brain surface created bits of a face<\/em>. THE MATRIX EXISTS.<\/p>\n Wait. [Sound of record scratch.] Nope. No it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n This article does a great job pointing out all the extraordinary complexities going from this tiny baby step to actually \u201cimplanting learning in the brain.\u201d<\/p>\n As in, we are nowhere near being able to do anything remotely like that<\/em>.<\/p>\n The idea itself seems plausible. As Adam Rogers writes:<\/p>\n The brain is salty glop that turns sensory information into mind; you ought to be able to harness that ability, to build an entire world in there.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n However, all sorts of problems get in the way.<\/p>\n At a very basic level, there are just too many neurons for us to be able to control precisely — something like 50,000 to 100,00 in an area the size of a grain of rice<\/em>.<\/p>\n To make anything like perception happen, we’d have to get thousands of those stimuli just right. (Imagine how complex LEARNING would be.)<\/p>\n The proto-matrix also faces a timing problem:<\/p>\n Perception and cognition are like a piano sonata: the notes must sound in a particular order for the harmonies to work.<\/p>\n Get that timing wrong and adjacent electrical pings don’t look like shapes — they look like one big smear, or like nothing at all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Finally — and this point especially merits attention:<\/p>\n The signals you see when a brain is doing brain things aren’t actually thought; they’re the exhaust the brain emits while its thinking.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In other words: all those cool brain images can’t necessarily be reverse engineered. We can measure electrical activity when a brain does something — but artifically recreating such electrical activity won’t guarantee the same underlying thought process.<\/p>\n So, here’s the SECOND way to use neuroscience in teaching:<\/p>\n When teachers understand how fantastically complicated neuroscience — and the underlying neurobiology of thought and learning — truly are, we can see through hype and extravagant claims often made about this field.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Rogers’s article does a GREAT job highlighting that complexity.<\/p>\n I promised to return to that study about walking and attention, so here goes:<\/p>\n I do think that this study offers some converging neuroscientific evidence that movement prior to learning<\/em> enhances attentional control.<\/p>\n However, twitter post citing this study implied it reaches a different conclusion: movement\u00a0during learning<\/em> is good for attention, creativity, etc.<\/p>\n That is: it claimed that teachers should design lessons that get students up and moving, and that this<\/em>\u00a0research requires this conclusion<\/em>.<\/p>\n In particular, it highlights this image<\/a> to show changes in brain activity between walking and sitting.<\/p>\n Rogers’s article in WIRED encourages us to think about all the neural complexity underlying this blithe suggestion.<\/p>\n After all, that image is simply a representation of a few dozen P3 graphs<\/a>:<\/p>\n![\"An](\"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Brain-EEG-Waves.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nBeyond “Mental Tasks”<\/h2>\n
Results, Please<\/h2>\n
The Matrix Could Be Real?<\/h2>\n
Glitches in the Matrix<\/h2>\n
An Example<\/h2>\n