Monthly Ed Tip February 2022: The Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2000 went to Eric Kandel, who showed that when learning occurs, the brain can change its circuits and new connections can be made.

What can we learn about education from a giant sea slug? Amazingly, a lot!

Last month’s Ed Tip discussed neuroplasticity, the brain’s capacity to continue growing and evolving in response to life experiences. Plasticity is the capacity to be shaped, molded, or altered; neuroplasticity, then, is the ability for the brain to adapt or change over time, by creating new neurons and building new networks.

A substantial amount of what we know about neuroplasticity is due to research on an extremely large Mediterranean sea slug (Aplysia californica) whose investigator was awarded the 2000 Nobel Prize in Medicine.

In 1983, Eric Kandel helped form the Howard Hughes Medical Research Institute at Columbia University devoted to molecular neural science.  The Kandel lab took on the task of identifying proteins that had to be synthesized in order to convert short-term memories into long-lasting memories.

In the era before neuroimaging technology, simple animal models were a research necessity, and Kandel focused on Aplysia, a marine snail that has only 20,000 neurons (in contrast to the human brain which houses over a million neurons) that are unusually large (and so more easily studied) and are mostly grouped into nine ganglia (functionally related neuronal clusters). Since Aplysia also has a relatively small repertoire of behaviors, it was a good experimental model for Kandel’s research into the cellular base of learning and memory.

Kandel’s early research focused on what occurs at the cellular and molecular levels when an animal learns to associate one stimulus with another—for example, the sound of a bell with the imminent arrival of food, or learns to ignore an irrelevant stimulus.

Such cellular and molecular level studies morphed into Kandel’s groundbreaking research on the molecular foundations of the memory process describing the role of protein synthesis in synaptic plasticity, and the mechanisms behind both short-and long-term memory

Specifically, Kandel's research with sea slugs shown that learning produces changes in behavior in two ways. One, by modifying the strength of connections between nerve cells or two, by increasing the connections between neurons.  He discovered the biochemical changes that accompany memory formation. Namely, short-term memory involves a functional modulation of the synapses while long-term memory requires the activation of genes and the synthesis of proteins to grow new synaptic connections.

In short, Kandel’s work determined that short-term memory is linked to functional changes in existing synapses, while long-term memory was associated with a structural change in the number of synaptic connections.

As a result of Kandel’s work, we are not, it turns out, merely slaves to our DNA given that when learning occurs, the brain can change its circuits and/or make neural connections.

For this work, the Austrian-born Kandel was awarded the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

What does this all mean for educators? Simply put, what a challenge and responsibility for all educators!  Kandel’s research has proven that due to the process of neuroplasticity, after every learning experience in any environment, be it during play, at work, or in school, the brain is biologically different at the end of the experience than before the experience, and it will never be the same again.

Imagine how many changes occur in the brain of a typical high school student and how different the brain looks after a six-hour school day or even one 45-minute class!

Educators, in whatever capacity, must embrace and respect the fact that due to neuroplasticity they are truly “brain changers” or as John Ratey, Harvard School of Medicine, “brain surgeons.”  They must be constantly aware of the permanent and long-lasting chemical and physical changes that are occurring in the brains of students due to their actions and interactions with students, whether positive or negative.

What amazing power educators possess and an obligation to excel and to their students when recognizing the fact that the brains of all students are forever changed as a result their words and actions in a classroom.

In summarizing this month’s Ed Tip discussion, it is helpful to recall the words of the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”