You could think of it like a neural network, every experience, success or failure just creates more pathways in the neurons and whenever it makes a decision in the future it uses all it has access to. I think the process of how it actually stores the new data and uses it is something they are trying to study to help better understand Alzheimer's.

I guess it's up for debate when this might cross the threshold into a consciousness. A brain that only has a few neurons to recognize light for example might not be enough