Persistent representation of a prior schema in the orbitofrontal cortex facilitates learning of a conflicting schema

Study author Ido Maor

Hot Off the Press – April 16, 2026

Published in Nature Communications by Ido Maor and Geoffrey Schoenbaum, et al. of the NIDA IRP Behavioral Neurophysiology Neuroscience Section.

Summary

When Old Knowledge Helps Learning Something New, even When It Conflicts

How does the brain use past experience to guide learning in new situations, especially when new rules contradict what we already know?

In a new study from the National Institute on Drug Abuse Intramural Research Program, researchers examined how the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), a brain region known to support flexible behavior and knowledge representation, contributes to this process. Schemas- generalized knowledge structures built from experience- typically help animals and humans learn quickly. But when new situations conflict with existing knowledge, it has long been assumed that these same schemas might interfere.

To test this, rats were trained on a series of odor-guided problems in which the sensory cues remained the same, but the underlying reward rules changed. Using chronic neural recordings alongside temporally precise inactivation of the OFC, the researchers tracked how neural representations evolved as animals learned, reused, and adapted different “schemas.”

The results revealed that OFC activity flexibly reorganizes to reflect the currently relevant rule, forming distinct representations for competing schemas. As animals progressed through the task, both their behavior and neural encoding improved more rapidly, evidence that they were reusing learned structure to accelerate new learning.

Unexpectedly, prior knowledge did not interfere with learning when rules changed. Instead, animals learned new, conflicting schemas faster when the OFC still contained a strong representation of the original one. Conversely, disrupting OFC activity during initial learning slowed the later acquisition of the conflicting rule.

These findings suggest that the brain does not simply overwrite old knowledge when circumstances change. Rather, the OFC preserves accurate representations of past schemas, allowing them to be used as a scaffold for learning, even when new demands oppose prior experience. This work provides new insight into how the brain supports cognitive flexibility and may have implications for understanding disorders where this process breaks down, such as addiction and other compulsive disorders.

Publication Information

@article{pmid41667512,

title = {Persistent representation of a prior schema in the orbitofrontal cortex facilitates learning of a conflicting schema},

author = {Ido Maor and James Atwell and Ilana Ascher and Yuan Zhao and Yuji K Takahashi and Evan Hart and Francisco Pereira and Geoffrey Schoenbaum},

url = {https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41667512/},

doi = {10.1038/s41467-026-69330-2},

issn = {2041-1723},

year  = {2026},

date = {2026-02-01},

urldate = {2026-02-01},

journal = {Nat Commun},

volume = {17},

number = {1},

abstract = {Schemas allow efficient behavior in new situations, but reliance on them can impair flexibility when new demands conflict. Evidence implicates the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) in deploying schemas in new situations. But how does this role affect learning of a conflicting schema? Here we addressed this question by recording or transiently inactivating OFC neurons in rats learning odor problems with identical external information but orthogonal rules governing reward. OFC representations adapted to track the underlying rules, and both performance and encoding were faster on subsequent than initial problems. Surprisingly, when the rule changed, persistent representation of the prior schema predicted faster acquisition of the new, and disrupting OFC activity during initial schema learning, later impaired acquisition of the second schema. Thus, rather than interfering with new learning, OFC neural activity was linked to improved acquisition by preserving accurate representations of the prior schema alongside the new one.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}