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Games Promote Long Term Learning by Gary Trotta |
 As we all know, we learn through repetition. However, we understand this now on a molecular level, which I’ll show you in a second. Games present us with a terrific means to introduce, deliver and review program information. We can and should take advantage of this by sending a game to our perspective trainees as pre-work . We can use the game to deliver or review program information during class, and can again send the game out or post it on-line as a follow up review after the class is over. Just as the three L’s of real estate , we have the 3 R's of learning, repeat, repeat, repeat. Here why!
There are 100 billion neurons each with up to 10,000 connections in the human brain, and each connection can represent a miniscule bit of information like a tiny piece of a single memory. In 1973 Tim Bliss and Terje Lomo coined the term Long Lasting Potentiation, now referred to as (LTP) or long term potentiation.
They attached electrodes to the hippocampus, a nuclei of the brain involved in memory storage, of rabbits. Initially giving the rabbits a single burst of electrical stimulation and measuring synaptic response in a neural pathway. They then applied a very rapid train of stimuli, 100 bursts per second and again measured the synaptic response. They found that the synaptic connections were strengthened for up to several daysm in effect creating long term memory.
The following is a fairly technical explanation of what is actually going on , so I’ll apologize in advance and provide fair warning. Learning begins with a synaptic connection between the axon of one neuron, and the dendritic spine of another. For a neuron to fire, an electrical charge builds up at the top of the axon, called the axon hillock. When the charge reaches a certain level, it causes the neuron to fire, and the electrical charge comes streaming down to the axon or pre-synaptic terminal. This in turn causes little vesicles or sacks, filled with neurotransmitter to move to the outer edge, or membrane of the pre-synaptic terminal. Neurotransmitters like glutamate, dopamine or serotonin, are dumped into the synaptic cleft, the space between the two neurons, and move to bind with the receptors on the dendritic spine, also called the post synaptic terminal. When the neurotransmitters bind with the receptors, they open up ion channels, and electrically charged ions, perhaps potasium or sodium, rush in and change the electrical charge within the post synaptic terminal. Again when the charge reaches a certain threshold the neuron fires and continues on its neuronal pathway.
But this is actually only half of the story. What then happens on a biochemical basis to strengthen the synapse was revealed to us by Noble Prize winner (in 2000) Eric Kandel (His book In Search of Memory). You see the post synaptic terminal has a dual receptor system. Initially, glutamate, our most excitatory neurotransmitter, binds to what is called the AMPA receptor and sodium ions flow through the channel. The other receptor, called the NMDA receptor cannot allow ions to flow in because it has a magnesium block (Graham Collingridge – 1980). If the initiating neuron continues to fire, more glutamate is released and does its job to eventually depolarize the post synaptic cell, and causes it to fire. This in turn removes the Mg block and allows Calcium to flow through the NMDA receptor. This gives rise to chemical changes that allow for both early LTP, analogous to short term memory, in which learning lasts about an hour, and late LTP, analogous to long term memory, which could last for days, even years. When calcium enters the post synaptic terminal it goes through many chemical gyrations, which I’ll not get into here (I’m sure you're glad by now). Calcium activates preexisting proteins which are said to phosphorylate, or turn on, additional AMPA receptors. With more receptors turned on, short term memory is established. For Long term memory, calcium initiates another series of chemical reactions which carry up to the nucleus of the cell and result in gene expression. In other words the genes create brand new proteins , that now travel back to the synapse and create even more AMPA receptors, thus, and finally establishing Long Term Memory. In addition, messengers from the post synaptic terminal are sent back to the pre-synaptic terminal, signaling it to send more glutamate. Furthermore, new proteins are synthesized in the pre-synaptic terminal resulting in the creation of additional axon connections.
So, because I know you’re now tired, I’ll conclude by saying, when we use games to repeat, repeat, repeat learning information, synapses are strengthened, long term memory is establish, and LEARNING HAS OCCURED!
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