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Neurobiology

Plasticity and the older owl

Nature volume 419, pages 258–259 (2002)Cite this article

Age reduces the brain's ability to adapt to change. But a surprising measure of neural adaptation does occur, at least in one experimental situation, if change is introduced bit by bit.

They say that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. But on page 293 of this issue1 Linkenhoker and Knudsen provide evidence that you can at least teach an old owl new tricks — if you train it in small steps. This result implies that the brains of older animals, including ourselves, may be capable of greater change in the form of adaptive plasticity than previously expected.

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Figure 1: Adult and baby barn owls.

ANNE KNUDSEN & MELANIE CIFERRI

References

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  1. senior editor at Nature,

    Hemai Parthasarathy

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  1. Hemai Parthasarathy
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Parthasarathy, H. Plasticity and the older owl. Nature 419, 258–259 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/419258a

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