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Neurons that help us form habits discovered
MIT researchers have discovered neurons in the brain that weigh costs and benefits to drive formation of habits. Researchers found that habit formation, at least in primates, is driven by neurons that represent the cost of a habit, as well as the reward.
Washington: MIT researchers have discovered neurons in the brain that weigh costs and benefits to drive formation of habits. Researchers found that habit formation, at least in primates, is driven by neurons that represent the cost of a habit, as well as the reward.
"The brain seems to be wired to seek some near optimality of cost and benefit," said Ann Graybiel, an Institute Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and also a member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research. Previous work by Graybiel and her colleagues discovered clear beginning and ending signals in the brain when habits are performed.
These signals appear in the striatum, a part of the brain that, among other things, coordinates body movements; the signals have been observed in mice, rats, and monkeys that have been trained to perform specific tasks. A few years ago, Graybiel and Theresa Desrochers, then a doctoral student in her lab, decided to let two monkeys learn a habit on their own, without training, as a way to mimic real-life learning. They also recorded the activity of 1,600 neurons in the striatum during the learning period.
The primates learned, over several months, to visually navigate a grid of dots on a screen in search of a randomly selected one that has been "baited," meaning that the monkey will receive a squirt of juice when its eyes pass through it. When the monkey's eyes land on the "baited" dot, the colour of the grid of dots changes, indicating a reward is coming.
