--- title: Why the Brain Doesn’t Start From Scratch | daily.dev description: A Princeton study published in Nature investigates how biological brains reuse modular components when learning new tasks, rather than starting from scratch.... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/why-the-brain-doesn-t-start-from-scratch-wii1fniun twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Why the Brain Doesn’t Start From Scratch | daily.dev og:description: A Princeton study published in Nature investigates how biological brains reuse modular components when learning new tasks, rather than starting from scratch.... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/why-the-brain-doesn-t-start-from-scratch-wii1fniun og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/Wii1fniun.png og:image:alt: Why the Brain Doesn’t Start From Scratch og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Why the Brain Doesn’t Start From Scratch **[Artem Kirsanov](https://daily.dev/sources/artemkirsanov)** · 12 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A Princeton study published in Nature investigates how biological brains reuse modular components when learning new tasks, rather than starting from scratch. Using monkeys performing visual discrimination tasks, researchers recorded prefrontal cortex neuron activity and found that the brain maintains stable, reusable subspaces for features like color, shape, and motor commands. Cross-task decoding experiments confirmed these modules are physically reused across different tasks. A central 'task belief' signal acts as a gain control mechanism, amplifying relevant sensory subspaces and suppressing irrelevant ones, while also routing information to the correct motor output. This compositional architecture — analogous to Lego bricks — explains the brain's remarkable ability to rapidly adapt to novel situations. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Flexible brain circuits can switch between different tasks](https://daily.dev/posts/flexible-brain-circuits-can-switch-between-different-tasks-goo6u8dmk) · MIT News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Biology-based brain model matches animals in learning, enables new discovery](https://daily.dev/posts/biology-based-brain-model-matches-animals-in-learning-enables-new-discovery-izkwee1g9) · MIT News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Rethinking how our brains use categories to make sense of the world](https://daily.dev/posts/rethinking-how-our-brains-use-categories-to-make-sense-of-the-world-dzwlbui8g) · MIT News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [How visual learning happens in the brain](https://daily.dev/posts/how-visual-learning-happens-in-the-brain-yvbujwok8) · MIT News · 54 upvotes · 3 comments - [To flexibly organize thought, the brain makes use of space](https://daily.dev/posts/to-flexibly-organize-thought-the-brain-makes-use-of-space-edpmskgmq) · MIT News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#machine-learning](https://daily.dev/tags/machine-learning), [#data-science](https://daily.dev/tags/data-science), [#neural-networks](https://daily.dev/tags/neural-networks) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/why-the-brain-doesn-t-start-from-scratch-wii1fniun) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Why the Brain Doesn’t Start From Scratch","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-the-brain-doesn-t-start-from-scratch-wii1fniun","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-the-brain-doesn-t-start-from-scratch-wii1fniun"},"datePublished":"2026-02-19T15:12:56.640Z","dateModified":"2026-02-19T15:13:16.177Z","description":"A Princeton study published in Nature investigates how biological brains reuse modular components when learning new tasks, rather than starting from scratch....","image":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/-_OgW6KSGE4/sddefault.jpg","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/-_OgW6KSGE4/sddefault.jpg","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Artem Kirsanov","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Artem Kirsanov","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--h-qobCHI--/f_auto/v1725038171/logos/artemkirsanov","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/artemkirsanov"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-the-brain-doesn-t-start-from-scratch-wii1fniun","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"machine-learning,data-science,neural-networks","timeRequired":"PT12M","video":{"@type":"VideoObject","name":"Why the Brain Doesn’t Start From Scratch","description":"A Princeton study published in Nature investigates how biological brains reuse modular components when learning new tasks, rather than starting from scratch....","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/-_OgW6KSGE4/sddefault.jpg","uploadDate":"2026-02-19T15:12:56.640Z","duration":"PT12M","url":"https://api.daily.dev/r/Wii1fniun","embedUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/embed/-_OgW6KSGE4"}} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Artem Kirsanov","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/artemkirsanov"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Why the Brain Doesn’t Start From Scratch"}]} ```