The research appears in the current Science.
Neuroscientists also theorize that higher forms of learning occur in the cerebral cortex.
Evidence from the study supports that theory. In the study, published in the Oct. 20 issue of Science , Brown University researchers taught rats to reach into a hole in a box to grasp food pellets, a new motor skill for the animals. After five days, the rats were tested. The researchers found that not only had the animals' behavior changed, through the learning of a new skill, but that their brains had also changed. In previous studies, the researchers showed that synapses were modifiable through the LTP process when those synapses were activated artificially by electrical impulses.