Learning and Memory

For Christians, Lent is a 40-day period of fasting and spiritual reflection leading up to Easter, the celebration of Christ’s resurrection. During Lent season in Kerala, meat, fish, and dairy are traditionally avoided which is a challenge in a culture where rice is rarely eaten without a non-vegetarian curry. Yet, my family found a way to make vegetarian meals taste familiar, using stimulus generalization. Stimulus generalization occurs when similar stimuli produce similar responses. In food, it explains why plant-based dishes can mimic the taste and texture of meat. Vegan alternatives use seasoning and texture to trigger familiar taste memories, making transitions to vegetarian diets easier. Long before vegan meat became popular, my grandmother and mother perfected this approach. Fish curry was made without fish, using raw jackfruit, yam, or soya chunks, prepared with the same spices and coconut-based gravy. Raw jackfruit when cooked absorbed the flavors of the curry and tasted simi...

  Classical conditioning doesn’t just happen in labs, it happens to all of us in real life, sometimes in ways we don’t even realize. Take my own experience with it. My parents were avid travel enthusiasts. Every vacation during my school days in Hyderabad meant traveling back to my hometown of Kerala by car. My dad would drive the entire way, and because of how often we did these trips, something strange happened. The smell of our car became strongly associated with long-distance travel. Now, for someone like me who is not built for long car journeys and who gets motion sickness quickly, this wasn’t great news. So what happened? Every time I smelled the car’s interior , my brain went: Uh-oh, here we go again.  Since I had repeatedly experienced motion sickness during car rides , my brain decided that the car smell = feeling sick. Soon, I couldn’t even sit in the car while it was stationary without feeling restless and queasy. My brain had linked a completely harmless smell...

  The following activity book was created as part of my course assignment, which required creating an interactive learning tool. Through my activity book, I intend to simplify the papers written by Eric Kandel , who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work investigating the neural correlates of learning mechanisms like habituation and sensitization . Kandel utilised  Aplysia,  a type of sea slug for his experiments because of its simple nervous system with large, easily identifiable neurons , making it ideal for investigating learning at the cellular level. Due to time constraints, I have included only the following four papers in my book: Pinsker, H., Kupfermann, I., Castellucci, V., & Kandel, E. R. (1970). Habituation and dishabituation of the gill-withdrawal reflex in Aplysia . Science, 167 (3926), 1740-1742. Kupfermann, I., Castellucci, V., Pinsker, H., & Kandel, E. R. (1970). Neuronal correlates of habituation and dishabituation of the gill-wit...

  Indian fans went wild for Coldplay , especially during their "Music of the Spheres" tour in January 2025, with massive crowds and record-breaking attendance at concerts in Mumbai and Ahmedabad, including the largest stadium concert of the 21st century in Ahmedabad. The demand for tickets was so high that fans traveled extensively, with memes about Mumbai-to-Ahmedabad flights packed with Coldplay fans becoming a reality. While I have listened to and enjoyed Coldplay songs like "Yellow," "Paradise," and "My Universe" through my earphones on YouTube, going to a concert by paying close to 5000 would have invited the wrath of my parents, who consider such luxuries a waste of time. But thankfully, The Orenda Club at IIT Gandhinagar also decided to celebrate the Ahmedabad concert by screening the Disney+ live show in its state-of-the-art Jibaben Auditorium. My friends and I joined the impromptu "concert" in the auditorium, where it was bei...

  Have you ever felt dizzy, lost your balance, or experienced a sensation of the world spinning around you? These symptoms can be unsettling and may stem from issues with the vestibular system, which helps control balance and spatial orientation. Fortunately, the brain has a remarkable ability to adapt through a process called habituation. Habituation is a fundamental process of learning where the brain gradually reduces its response to a repeated stimulus. This process occurs in various sensory modalities, including vision, hearing, and balance, and plays a critical role in everyday functioning. For instance, when someone moves to a new house near a busy road, they may initially find the noise distracting. Over time, however, their brain adapts, and they stop noticing the background sounds. This reduced response is a classic example of habituation in action. The vestibular system, located in the inner ear, is responsible for maintaining balance and spatial orientation. When this s...

Hello Kitty is more than just a cute cartoon character—she is a master manipulator of our most primal instincts. Her oversized head, wide eyes, and round face make her irresistibly appealing, tapping into deep-seated behavioral patterns that have been hardwired into our brains through evolution. This phenomenon can be explained through the concepts of modal action patterns and supernormal stimuli—principles that reveal how certain exaggerated cues can trigger stronger responses than their natural counterparts. Modal action patterns (MAPs) are instinctive behavioral sequences that are triggered by specific stimuli. These responses are common in animals, including humans, and are often related to survival and reproduction. For example, baby-like features such as large eyes, a small nose, and a round face trigger a caregiving response in adults—an adaptation that ensures the survival of infants. This is known as the "baby schema" (Kindchenschema), a concept first introduced by e...