Researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston have proved that brains are better at learning at certain periods than others, thanks to analyzing the brains of sea snails.
This isn't the first time we've seen snails used to experiment with memory, but the new research could make a major difference in educational theory, and provide a scientific basis for lesson planning.
While snail brains are a far cry from humans, this proof of concept research proved showed that the proteins associated with memory are more active on a certain schedule — and thus better able to learn. The researchers used a computer to model an optimal, if irregular, schedule to enhance memory with the sea snails. Compared to those who were trained at regular intervals, the optimized snails retained memory significantly better.
Hopefully this research will be able to help those with learning disabilities and memory problems, but its application within the greater sphere of educational theory seems obvious. If we can show that having the same school lesson at the same time each day is far less effective than an irregular schedule chosen by computer algorithm, it could radically shake up the way humans are taught.