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Related: About this forumThe bit of your brain that signals how bad things could be
Part of the neuropsychology of Doomerism?
The bit of your brain that signals how bad things could be
An evolutionarily ancient and tiny part of the brain tracks expectations about nasty events, finds new UCL research.
The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrates for the first time that the human habenula, half the size of a pea, tracks predictions about negative events, like painful electric shocks, suggesting a role in learning from bad experiences.
Brain scans from 23 healthy volunteers showed that the habenula activates in response to pictures associated with painful electric shocks, with the opposite occurring for pictures that predicted winning money.
Previous studies in animals have found that habenula activity leads to avoidance as it suppresses dopamine, a brain chemical that drives motivation. In animals, habenula cells have been found to fire when bad things happen or are anticipated.
"The habenula tracks our experiences, responding more the worse something is expected to be," says senior author Dr Jonathan Roiser of the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. "For example, the habenula responds much more strongly when an electric shock is almost certain than when it is unlikely. In this study we showed that the habenula doesn't just express whether something leads to negative events or not; it signals quite how much bad outcomes are expected."
An evolutionarily ancient and tiny part of the brain tracks expectations about nasty events, finds new UCL research.
The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrates for the first time that the human habenula, half the size of a pea, tracks predictions about negative events, like painful electric shocks, suggesting a role in learning from bad experiences.
Brain scans from 23 healthy volunteers showed that the habenula activates in response to pictures associated with painful electric shocks, with the opposite occurring for pictures that predicted winning money.
Previous studies in animals have found that habenula activity leads to avoidance as it suppresses dopamine, a brain chemical that drives motivation. In animals, habenula cells have been found to fire when bad things happen or are anticipated.
"The habenula tracks our experiences, responding more the worse something is expected to be," says senior author Dr Jonathan Roiser of the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. "For example, the habenula responds much more strongly when an electric shock is almost certain than when it is unlikely. In this study we showed that the habenula doesn't just express whether something leads to negative events or not; it signals quite how much bad outcomes are expected."
So we doomers may just have over-developed habenulae...
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The bit of your brain that signals how bad things could be (Original Post)
GliderGuider
Jul 2014
OP
dhill926
(16,314 posts)1. my habenula is half empty….
NV Whino
(20,886 posts)2. What do you call it when it's half full?
BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)3. A few people I have met have an underdeveloped sense of outcome
I wonder if this is the cause, an atrophied habenula.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)4. Perhaps they suffer from advanced Republicanitis?
"Underdeveloped sense of outcome" seems to describe most of them pretty well...
BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)5. Ha! Thankfully, I don't know any Republicans
I'm in California, and I have to go pretty far out of my way to meet one. We do have pockets of them, so I'm not saying we're Republican-free. But it sure is nice not having to deal with that every day like so many other DUers do. I don't know how they can take it!
defacto7
(13,485 posts)6. ... or not
I don't get my regular electroshock therapy while reading scientific journals.