“The Promise of Discovery” is a podcast hosted by the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center (VKC) that highlights research in intellectual and developmental disabilities. The goals of the podcast are to host conversations about research in plain language and to highlight “real world” implications. The discussions cover why the research matters in the lives of people with disabilities and families, how the research impacts and enhances what we know already and/or raises additional questions in the field, and what implications the research might have for policy.
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“The Promise of Discovery” is a podcast hosted by the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center (VKC) that highlights research in intellectual and developmental disabilities. The goals of the podcast are to host conversations about research in plain language and to highlight “real world” implications. The discussions cover why the research matters in the lives of people with disabilities and families, how the research impacts and enhances what we know already and/or raises additional questions in the field, and what implications the research might have for policy.
Visual perception with motor practice leads to lasting brain changes that support learning
The Promise of Discovery
13 minutes
10 months ago
Visual perception with motor practice leads to lasting brain changes that support learning
The Promise of Discovery Season 5, Episode 4
This research explored how combining visual perception with motor practice—specifically drawing unfamiliar symbols—leads to lasting brain changes that support learning. Participants trained by drawing new letter-like symbols over four days while researchers tracked their brain activity using fMRI scans before, immediately after, and one-week post-training. The after-training scans revealed significant differences in activity within several brain regions—including the motor cortex—during the perception of trained compared to untrained symbols that were greater one-week post-training. This suggests that hands-on, visual-motor learning builds long-term changes in how the brain processes visual information, with potential implications for educational strategies and interventions.
Featuring: Shelby Buettner, Graduate Student, Vanderbilt University
Interviewer: Sophia Vinci-Booher, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Psychology & Human Development and a Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Member
The Promise of Discovery
“The Promise of Discovery” is a podcast hosted by the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center (VKC) that highlights research in intellectual and developmental disabilities. The goals of the podcast are to host conversations about research in plain language and to highlight “real world” implications. The discussions cover why the research matters in the lives of people with disabilities and families, how the research impacts and enhances what we know already and/or raises additional questions in the field, and what implications the research might have for policy.
