Lazy individuals aren't putting in the effort but their brains are!
By Eva Rusnak
Should I get out of bed and trudge through the snow to get to my 8 am class or should I just sleep in? Perhaps this question sounds all too familiar to you. Or maybe you’re the type of person that is up early in the morning trying to fit that seven mile run in before class. It’s okay. Thats not me either.
By Eva Rusnak
Should I get out of bed and trudge through the snow to get to my 8 am class or should I just sleep in? Perhaps this question sounds all too familiar to you. Or maybe you’re the type of person that is up early in the morning trying to fit that seven mile run in before class. It’s okay. Thats not me either.
We all know friends
that are either highly motivated and those that who may operate with very
little motivation, interest, or concern.
Turns out while it may seem “lazy” individuals aren’t putting in the effort, their brains are.
In a recent 2015 study published in the Oxford Journal, a group of scientists at University of Oxford studied the brains of
young healthy individuals to better understand pathological apathy. Masud
Husain, Professor of Neurology and Cognitive Neuroscience at Oxford, explained that more
extreme apathy is often experienced by people with Alzhiemers or Dementia.
These individuals tend to show a lack of interest, poor initiation, and low
social engagement over time as their brains experience physical change. He and his team hoped to gain some new insight into apathy by
comparing MRI scans of healthy individuals and their differing levels of apathy.
In his study, participants were observed under an MRI
machine as they played a game. Researchers made several offers to participants
that differed in physical effort required by the participant and reward
obtained. Apathetic participants were characterized as less likely to accept offers
that required more effort while motivated participants took these offers.
Much to their
surprise, it turns out that the brains of healthy apathetic people exhibited
more effort than motivated participants. The MRI scans showed that more
apathetic individuals had more activity in the pre-motor cortex. As we discussed in class, this is region lies
anterior to the primary motor cortex and plays a major role in planning
movement. The secondary motor area has a
strong reciprocal connection with the parietal lobe which integrates our
sensory information.
Dr. Husain expected that apathetic individuals would actually
show less activity because they were less likely to choose effortful tasks. He
and his team of researchers believe that apathetic individuals showed more
activity in this region because their brains were less efficient in turning
decision into action. Apathetic individuals had to exhibit more energy because
their brain structure is not as efficient.
More apathetic people require more energy in planning
actions, and therefore it is more “costly” to complete that action.
Understanding mild apathy in healthy individuals can help find ways to treat
more extreme apathy and lack of interest in pathological cases. In the meantime, maybe you can use this as an excuse the next time your roommate asks why you still haven't washed your dishes.
http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2015-11-13-brain-structure-may-be-root-apathy-1
I really enjoyed this blog post due to it being well-written as well as informative. Similar to Dr. Husain's expectations, I would have expected healthy apathetic individuals to show less pre-motor activity due to them being less likely to choose effortful tasks. According to the experiment, though, they actually show more pre-motor activity, which is interpreted as more effort or energy being exerted by their brains. Their brain structures are therefore not as efficient as healthy non-apathetic individuals. This leads me to wonder what is it about the healthy apathetic participants' brain structures that causes them to have the deficit in the first place. Maybe this is a topic that will be investigated in future research (if it has not already been done).
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading this article. I found this very interesting. I never thought that the people who choose to use less energy would have a more active brain. Now that I read this article I really gave this whole idea more thought. This article was put together very well though and kept me interested the whole time. Just very surprised that lazy people would have a more active brain other than the other way around.
ReplyDeleteThis was a great post! I appreciated the writing style for it was both causal and informative. I found it to be very relatable, for I often consider myself to be lazy or my family thinks I am the lazy one. I would've thought the same thing as Dr. Husain, and I am now wondering if humans are more likely to be motivated individuals rather than lazy or apathetic. My reasoning behind this inquiry is because lazy peoples' premotor cortex is more active, and that would mean that their brains experience more activity than most brains and this would mean that average brains experience less activity and consequently they are more motivated. I think that in the future there will be more studies related to laziness and technology use because often times people make the argument that technology is making us lazier. I'd be interested in seeing more studies on what causes apathy or laziness.
ReplyDeleteI found this extremely interesting. There are definitely people that seem to wake up with motivation coming out their ears, ready to take on the day's challenges. While everyone has bad days and good days, there's also people who seem to chronically not care. I've thought maybe certain individuals experience less of a pleasure reward, making tasks feel less worthwhile - as we've recently discussed in class. I never have thought about the idea that effort actually takes more WORK for certain people than it does for others. A question I have is: Is their brain this way and that's why they are lazy, or does a mental state of "not caring" make the brain less efficient due to other processes also at work in the brain? A study that looks at both the premotor cortex and pleasure reward systems together during certain tasks for lazy and motivated individuals would be very interesting.
ReplyDeleteI was actually initially very surprised at the results of this study; I too assumed that ‘lazy’ individuals would show less brain activity. It shocked me that there was more activity in the pre-motor cortex in apathetic individuals, because I assume that those people would not actually be intending to follow through on the planned movements. However, I was thinking that in some situations, perhaps the high presence of brain activity in apathetic individuals could be explained by mirror neurons. For example, if the subject saw another person who was ‘motivated' participating in an action, the pre-motor areas of the apathetic individual would still be as active as if they actually went through with the action they were witnessing. Therefore, certain areas of the apathetic individuals’ brains are able to be activated without the individual engaging in any additional action.
ReplyDeleteI found this post to be very interesting. I remember discussing the role of anterior cingulate cortex in motivation in Rhesus monkeys and the grape juice reward for the attention tests. I think the results were striking but after reading the rationale it makes sense. More apathetic personalities would require more brain activation but I find it interesting that this activation occurs in the pre motor cortex. I would be interested to see how these "apathetic" people would change in their motivation if TMS was conducted over these regions. I also think there may be more aspects to an apathetic personality that integrates more "nurture" than "nature".
ReplyDeleteI thought this was a really interesting article! Like Dr. Husain and some of our classmates I also assumed that the apathetic people would have less brain activity. I myself can relate at times and always assumed my brain just didn’t want to work as hard. But in the case of the apathetic individuals, it would make sense that their brain structure may be lacking in the motivation mechanism to elicit action and therefore require more activity to get that done. I think this is a really interesting find and I would be interested in seeing if more information can be gleamed about apathy and even motivation and the interconnection of these things with different brain structure like the anterior cingulate. I think it would be interesting to see if the anterior cingulate plays a similar role in these instances as when it is involved in motivating attention. I will definitely keep this article in mind for when I neglect my chores!
ReplyDelete