This cover illustration is a highly conceptual interpretation of a paper on neural constraints on learning. The research explores how adaptable the brain is during learning and finds that some new neural activity patterns are easier to generate than others — corresponding to more easily learned tasks — and that these can be predicted at the start of the experiment. This finding could form a basis for a neural explanation for the balance between adaptability and persistence in action and thought.

Art direction: Kelly Krause
Publisher: Nature