Now why didn't I think of this for my high school science fair project?

Scientists have found a way to track tiny features of individual brain cells in living mice, providing a glimpse at how brains change over time. In one case, they watched the animals' brains rewire after their whiskers were clipped...

The researchers tracked the spines, which measure less than one twentieth the width of a human hair, using specially bred mice that carry a gene which makes some of their neurons glow. They used laser and electron microscopes to peek through windows implanted in the mouse skulls, or through skull bones thinned with a drill.

In one study, the researchers clipped the highly sensitive whiskers of mice and watched changes in the part of the brain that receives signals from the whiskers. Two to four days after clipping, the number of spines created or lost in that area increased significantly, indicating new synapses were being created and others destroyed, the researchers reported.

In my neural network class, I don't think we talked about ANNs that form new connections and zero out old ones, but it would certainly be fun to experiment with.

And we wouldn't even have to cut the whiskers off any poor mice.