Neuroscience of Errors: How the Brain Turns Failures into Knowledge

Researchers have discovered that the brain learns new tasks much faster than previously thought, and that this learning occurs in the sensory cortex, not just in higher brain areas. Studies in mice have shown that they learn quickly, but continue to make strategic mistakes, testing the limits of new knowledge. This discovery helps to better understand how the human brain processes learning and may contribute to advances in neuroscience and education.

Learning from mistakes is an essential process for adaptation and decision-making, and neuroscience has shown that our brains are biologically programmed for this type of learning.

When we make a mistake, areas such as the prefrontal cortex and the basal ganglia spring into action, analyzing the discrepancy between the expectation and the actual result.

This “error signal,” often mediated by the neurotransmitter dopamine, helps to adjust our future choices and behaviors. Furthermore, studies show that repeating errors does not mean a lack of learning, but may reflect a strategy of the brain to test limits and explore different possibilities before consolidating a more efficient response.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University investigated how animals learn new skills and how brain processes influence learning. Traditionally, learning has been thought to occur slowly and gradually, especially in laboratory experiments with rodents.

However, this study revealed that mice can learn new auditory tasks extremely quickly, in just 20 to 40 attempts. This challenges the idea that learning occurs solely through slow changes in the brain and suggests that animals may acquire knowledge faster than they demonstrate in their behavior.

To better understand this process, the scientists trained mice in a task in which they had to lick when they heard a specific tone and refrain from licking when they heard another.

During this training, they recorded the activity of neurons in the auditory cortex, the region of the brain responsible for hearing and sound perception.

What surprised the researchers was that the learning did not occur solely in more complex brain areas, but directly in the sensory cortex, something previously thought unlikely. This finding suggests that the sensory cortex not only processes sensory information, but also plays a key role in forming associations between stimuli and actions.

Another intriguing point was that even after learning the task, the mice continued to make mistakes. Rather than indicating a failure in learning, these mistakes appeared to be part of an exploratory strategy, where the animals were testing the limits of what they had learned.

This suggests that rather than learning slowly, the animals may be experimenting with different responses to refine their behavior, something that could have important implications for understanding learning in humans.

The researchers also discovered two distinct signals in the mice’s brains. The first emerged quickly and was related to the prediction of rewards, which is crucial for early learning.

The second, associated with behavioral control (such as suppressing licking when needed), took longer to emerge, indicating that different brain processes contribute separately to rapid learning and to improved performance over time.

These findings reinforce the idea that learning is more dynamic and complex than previously thought, challenging classic models of brain plasticity. This research not only expands our understanding of how the brain learns, but may also have implications for developing new approaches to improving learning and treating neurological disorders in humans.

By better understanding the brain mechanisms involved, we can advance the search for strategies that optimize learning and adaptation to new challenges.

READ MORE:

Rapid emergence of latent knowledge in the sensory cortex drives learning

Céline Drieu, Ziyi Zhu, Ziyun Wang, Kylie Fuller, Aaron Wang, Sarah Elnozahy, and Kishore Kuchibhotla 

Nature (2025)

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08730-8

Abstract: 

Rapid learning confers significant advantages on animals in ecological environments. Despite the need for speed, animals appear to only slowly learn to associate rewarded actions with predictive cues. This slow learning is thought to be supported by gradual changes to cue representation in the sensory cortex. However, evidence is growing that animals learn more rapidly than classical performance measures suggest, challenging the prevailing model of sensory cortical plasticity. Here we investigated the relationship between learning and sensory cortical representations. We trained mice on an auditory go/no-go task that dissociated the rapid acquisition of task contingencies (learning) from its slower expression (performance). Optogenetic silencing demonstrated that the auditory cortex drives both rapid learning and slower performance gains but becomes dispensable once mice achieve ‘expert’ performance. Instead of enhanced cue representations, two-photon calcium imaging of auditory cortical neurons throughout learning revealed two higher-order signals that were causal to learning and performance. A reward-prediction signal emerged rapidly within tens of trials, was present after action-related errors early in training, and faded in expert mice. Silencing at the time of this signal impaired rapid learning, suggesting that it serves an associative role. A distinct cell ensemble encoded and controlled licking suppression that drove slower performance improvements. These ensembles were spatially clustered but uncoupled from sensory representations, indicating higher-order functional segregation within auditory cortex. Our results reveal that the sensory cortex manifests higher-order computations that separably drive rapid learning and slower performance improvements, reshaping our understanding of the fundamental role of the sensory cortex.