A Cell-Biological Approach to Learning

The most remarkable aspect of an animal's behavior is the ability to learn from experience, an ability that reaches its highest form in man. In good measure we are what we are because of what we have learned. In man , as well as in other animals, performance of most behaviors involves some aspects of learning and memory, and many psychological and emotional problems are thought to result, at least in part, from experience. Moreover, insofar as psychotherapeutic intervention is successful in treating mental disorders, it is presumably because treatment creates an experience that allows people to change. The study of learning is central to psychology and neurobiology. Any meaningful mechanistic analysis of learning requires the combined use of the concepts and the methods of both disciplines. My purpose in this monograph is to outline some beginning steps toward an analysis of mechanism by reviewing recent attempts to combine behavioral and cell-biological approaches to the study of learning.