Abstract: Disclosed herein is a method for training a subject to produce a new neural activity pattern that results in a desired behavior. The method creates a brain-computer interface mapping between a neural activity pattern of a set of neural units and the desired behavior in an intrinsic manifold, without learning. An outside manifold perturbation of the mapping is then created, defining a new neural activity pattern lying outside of the intrinsic manifold that will produce the desired behavior. The new neural activity pattern is taught by incrementally perturbing the neural activity pattern that produces the desired behavior between the intrinsic manifold and the outside manifold perturbation and having the subject learn the desired behavior for each increment.