A wide array of changes in the brain can accompany a shift in
behavioural state. It is intuitive to think that certain types of
changes (e.g. changes in cellular metabolism) are more plastic
compared to others (e.g. changes in synaptic morphology). However,
our inferences are currently limited to our knowledge of the
mechanisms that encode experience in the brain, and the extent to
which these mechanisms are labile. Moreover, in most cases, the
link between mRNA levels and higher levels of organization like
protein concentration and cell structural changes is not known.
Nevertheless, in some cases suggestive inferences are possible using
transcriptomic data.