“What your horse’s brain can teach you” – Email 19

Hello ,

I hope you all had a good weekend and Halloween…

It seems very apt but this week I'm talking about brains!

I think it's safe to say, if you are on this mailing list, you are probably just as interested as I am in the workings of the equine brain and how this impacts behaviour and training.

Recently I’ve had the fortune of revisiting one of my favourite IH interviews — our deep dive into the equine brain with Dr Andrew Hemmings, Associate Professor of Equine Science at the Royal Agricultural University… or, as I like to call him, the Equine Brain Expert.

If you haven’t read it yet (and you’re not that familiar with equine neuroscience), this article will change the way you think about every interaction you have with horses. I really recommend you make time for it — especially as I’ve made it available for everyone to access for free for the next week… you’re welcome 😉.

– Abi & The IH Team

How Horses Learn…

Now heads up — it’s a little on the science-y side… “When we started researching the horse’s brain about 22 years ago, we weren’t even sure that the striatum of the horse – a group of structures involved in the reward, learning and habit-forming system of the brain – even existed. But when we compared it with the human equivalent, we could hardly tell the difference.”

In other words: your horse’s brain works far more like yours and mine than scientists initially thought — with a more developed reward system than first suspected, which has significant implications for learning.

Andrew explains that all learning in the horse connects back to a part of the brain that acts as the primary “reward centre”. When a horse experiences something pleasant (say, a food reward or the release of pressure at just the right moment), a chemical we’ve all heard of — dopamine — is released. That’s the famous “molecule of more” that motivates them to repeat the behaviour. This process takes time to consolidate into true learning.

“With correct timing, we can strengthen the neural pathways leading to learning… – and that takes a bit of time to consolidate.”

This ties in beautifully with what Kelly teaches about latent learning on the Online Horse Psychology Course. The next time you introduce something new and your horse seems to “sleep on it” and come back better a day later, that’s not your imagination — it’s neuroscience at work.

It’s a simple analogy that changes the whole conversation.

Andrew actually did a fascinating webinar for us all about this — it’s such a good watch, especially if you have (or know) a horse with a stereotypy. You might even find yourself re-thinking the whole senario.

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