New Study in Mice Reveals Unexpected Place for Learning, Memory in the Brain

Above: Apical dendrites in the somatosensory cortex firing in response to reward. A team of Columbia neuroscientists, led by Randy Bruno, PhD, have revealed that a simple brain region, known for processing basic sensory information, can also guide complex feats of mental activity. The new study involving mice demonstrated that cells in the somatosensory cortex, the brain area responsible for touch, also play a key role in reward learning, the sophisticated type of learning that allows the brain to associat