---
title: UMD Scientists May Have Discovered Why Learning Stalls
date: 2026-08-10T17:19:00-04:00
author: University of Maryland
canonical_url: "https://today.umd.edu/umd-scientists-may-have-discovered-why-learning-stalls"
section: Articles
---
# UMD Scientists May Have Discovered Why Learning Stalls

*August 10, 2026* — by [Georgia Jiang](/author/georgia-jiang)


> A cycle of loosening and rebuilding in a matrix around brain cells offers new insight into skill-building.

*Man with acoustic guitar clamps desired chord while watching online lesson on laptop. Guitar fretboard and hand of man learning to play guitar using online tutorials. Selective and soft focus. — UMD biologists' discovery about a mechanism in the brain could help explain what causes people to eventually stall out on learning a new instrument or a language. (Photo by Adobe Stock)*

<span>For many who have struggled to learn a new language or instrument, it’s a familiar pattern: rapid progress at first, followed by a plateau that no amount of practice or concentration seems to surmount.</span>

University of Maryland biologists identified a physical mechanism in the brain that may help explain why such plateaus occur: A scaffold-like structure surrounding brain cells, called the extracellular matrix, helps control when the brain can change during learning. In the auditory cortex, this matrix loosens within hours of a practice session and rebuilds itself within about a day—a cycle that lets the learning from a session take hold before the next one. As a skill is mastered, the rebuilding cycle fades and eventually stops altogether, as if the brain has decided that learning is finished and it’s time to protect what’s been gained.

The team published [its findings](https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2601801123) Friday in the *Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.*

“For the first time, we’ve been able to see that the remodeling process changes as you gain experience. It happens early in learning, declines and then gradually stops,” said the study’s senior author, Melissa Caras, an assistant professor of biology at UMD. “This tells us that the brain isn’t just passively storing what you learn; it’s also actively regulating when learning can happen and when it should stop, so that the skills you’ve built are protected rather than overwritten.”

For decades, scientists viewed this matrix in adult brains as a rigid barrier, a scaffold that holds brain wiring in place and makes learning harder as we age. This helps to explain why young children pick up languages effortlessly while adults must work hard for every word. In early childhood, the dense, net-like structures that stabilize brain wiring are still immature, leaving the brain more open to change. As children grow older, the matrix matures and “firms up,” trading flexibility for stability.


*Dark microscope image of green, white and purple dots — Neurons in the auditory cortex (shown as magenta) are surrounded by perineuronal nets (green). (Image by Jéssica Winne)*




**Topics:** [Research](https://today.umd.edu/tags/research)


**Tags:** [Biology](https://today.umd.edu/topic/biology), [Research](https://today.umd.edu/topic/research)


**Units:** [College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences](https://today.umd.edu/topic/college-computer-mathematical-and-natural-sciences)