ArticleNature communications2025
Abstract rule learning promotes cognitive flexibility in complex environments across species.
Article in Nature communications, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- Psychological determinants of employee adaptation: a novel and robust learnability quotient-based fuzzy decision framework for organizational learning.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Perceptual response patterns in rhesus macaque attentional set shifting are associated with inflexible behavior.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- A multi-region flexible neural interface for behavioral state decoding in freely moving mice.Microsystems & nanoengineering · 2026Article
- A neural mechanism for online discovery of latent contexts.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- The Optically Guided and Pre-assembled Implantation Cranial Window Reveals Cortical Spatial Representations during Navigation.Research (Washington, D.C.) · 2026Article
- Rodent research of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: insights into widely used animal models.Laboratory animal research · 2025Review
- Abstract rule learning promotes cognitive flexibility in complex environments across species.Nature communications · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Rapid learning in complex and changing environments is a hallmark of intelligent behavior. Humans achieve this in part through abstract concepts applicable to multiple, related situations. It is unclear, however, whether the computational mechanisms underlying rapid learning are unique to humans or also exist in other species. We combined behavioral, computational and electrophysiological analyses of a multidimensional rule-learning paradigm in male rats and in humans. We report that both species infer task rules by sequentially testing different hypotheses, rather than learning the correct action for all possible cue combinations. Neural substrates of hypothetical rules were detected in prefrontal network activity of both species. This species-conserved mechanism reduces task dimensionality and explains key experimental observations: sudden behavioral transitions and facilitated learning after prior experience. Our findings help to narrow the explanatory gap between human macroscopic and rodent microcircuit levels and provide a foundation for the translational investigation of impaired cognitive flexibility.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.