 Neuroscience can also support teachers through an understanding of the brain as a prediction machine. This means that the brain doesn't passively receive information from the environment, but that the brain actively tries to predict what will come next. Imagine you are in a concert and you're listening to your favorite piece. From the first few notes, you know what the next few moments should sound like. If the musician makes a mistake, you'll be really disappointed. But the brain responds to this error in a remarkable way. If we were able to record your brain activity during this moment of prediction violation, we would see a large deflection in brainwaves. To record this, we can use a technique called electroencephalography, or EEG, which measures the electric brain activity generated by the brain when it learns about and interacts with the environment. When our sensors receive information from the world, like sounds into our ears for example, this information gets processed by a network of brain regions, including the auditory cortex and the frontal cortex, which is typically involved in high-order cognitive functions. However, there is also information that is passed backwards again to auditory cortex, hence closing the loop. The current thinking is that this information reflects predictions about the sensory environment. These predictions are compared to the actual sensory inputs that arrive to our ears. When predictions and sensory inputs do not match, the brain signals a prediction error that is passed forward through the cortical network. These prediction errors send a learning signal to the brain. During learning, errors loop through the brain networks until reconciliation between expectations and reality. For example, imagine you see a sequence of objects, say a mango, followed by a koala, followed by a hat, and then a coral. But the second time you see this sequence, you know that a hat will follow a koala. But if it doesn't, you would be surprised. New imaging studies show that the region of the brain called hippocampus pops out whenever this mismatch signal occurs. The ability to predict reflects that something fundamental has been learned, like what the structure or the cause of a sequence of events might be. We learn by repetition and association. All of these are pictures of mushrooms, some edible and some not edible. If up to a point in time all the mushrooms you've seen were edible, you may be surprised to hear that this red one is dangerous. The surprise signal or prediction error is fundamental in driving learning as it indicates that your current model of the world is incorrect and needs updating. This ability to make predictions and detect changes in the environment is adaptive and crucial for survival, because it allows us to rapidly respond to potential rewards or threats, such as those in mushrooms.