Dynamic rewiring of electrophysiological brain networks during learning

Paolo Ruggeri; Jenifer Miehlbradt; Aya Kabbara; Mahmoud Hassan

doi:10.1162/netn_a_00289

Dynamic rewiring of electrophysiological brain networks during learning

Netw Neurosci. 2023 Jun 30;7(2):578-603. doi: 10.1162/netn_a_00289. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Paolo Ruggeri¹, Jenifer Miehlbradt¹, Aya Kabbara^{2

3}, Mahmoud Hassan^{4

3}

Affiliations

¹ Brain Electrophysiology Attention Movement Laboratory, Institute of Psychology, University of Lausanne, Switzerland.
² Lebanese Association for Scientific Research, Tripoli, Lebanon.
³ MINDig, F-35000 Rennes, France.
⁴ School of Engineering, University of Reykjavik, Reykjavik, Iceland.

Abstract

Human learning is an active and complex process. However, the brain mechanisms underlying human skill learning and the effect of learning on the communication between brain regions, at different frequency bands, are still largely unknown. Here, we tracked changes in large-scale electrophysiological networks over a 6-week training period during which participants practiced a series of motor sequences during 30 home training sessions. Our findings showed that brain networks become more flexible with learning in all the frequency bands from theta to gamma ranges. We found consistent increase of flexibility in the prefrontal and limbic areas in the theta and alpha band, and over somatomotor and visual areas in the alpha band. Specific to the beta rhythm, we revealed that higher flexibility of prefrontal regions during the early stage of learning strongly correlated with better performance measured during home training sessions. Our findings provide novel evidence that prolonged motor skill practice results in higher, frequency-specific, temporal variability in brain network structure.

Keywords: Brain network dynamics; Electroencephalography; Human learning.