This Is Morbid, But It's Also Really Cool. The Timeless Journey Of The Mind (and The Rest Of The Skull)™

The (neuro)science of getting and staying motivated

There is no question that motivation is one of the hardest and yet important factors in life. It’s the difference between success and failure, goal-setting and aimlessness, well-being and unhappiness. And yet, why is it so hard to get motivated – or even if we do, to keep it up?

That is the question that scientists led by Professor Carmen Sandi at EPFL and Dr Gedi Luksys at the University of Edinburgh have sought to answer. The researchers worked off previous knowledge that told them two things: First, that people differ a lot in their capacity to engage in motivated behavior and that motivational problems like apathy are common in neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders. Second, to target an area of the brain called the “nucleus accumbens”.

Sitting close to the bottom of brain, the nucleus accumbens has been the subject of a lot of research. The reason is that it was quickly found to be a major player in functions like aversion, reward, reinforcement, and motivation.

To test and quantify motivation, the EPFL team designed what is known as a “monetary incentive force task”. The idea is that participants perform a task with increasing – and measurable – effort and get paid sums of money that correspond to their effort. Basically, do more and get paid more.

In this study, 43 men were scanned to measure–metabolites in the nucleus accumbens in their brains with a sophisticated brain-imaging technique called “proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy”, or 1H-MRS. This can specifically measure the abundance of neurochemicals in the brain, such as neurotransmitters and metabolites. Because of this 1H-MRS is used even in clinical settings to determine neurological disorders.

Subsequently, each participant was asked to squeeze a device that measures force – a dynamometer – to a given level of contraction in order to earn either 0.2, 0.5, or 1 Swiss franc. This procedure was repeated for a number of 120 consecutive trials, which made performance in the task quite demanding.

The idea of the experiment was that the different sums would push participants to decide if they were going to invest energy and perform the task accordingly at each trial. The scientists also ran the experiment under isolation and group conditions to investigate the influence of competition on performance.

Once they had gathered the behavioral data, the researchers processed it through a computational model that estimated the most appropriate parameters that should be measured with regard to utility, effort, and performance functions. This allowed them to interrogate whether particular neurotransmitter levels predicted specific motivational functions.

The analysis revealed that the key to performance – and, by extension, motivation – lies within the ratio of two neurotransmitters in the nucleus accumbens: glutamine and glutamate. Specifically, the ratio of glutamine to glutamate relates to our capacity for maintaining performance over a long period of time – what the researchers term “stamina”.

Another discovery was that competition seems to boost performance even from the beginning of the task. This was especially the case for individuals with low glutamine-to-glutamate ratios in the nucleus accumbens.

“The findings provide novel insights in the field of motivation neuroscience,” says Carmen Sandi. “They show that the balance between glutamine and glutamate can help predict specific, computational components of motivated performance. Our approach and data can also help us develop therapeutic strategies, including nutritional interventions, that address deficits in effort engagement by targeting metabolism.”

Hey, did you change your Discord name and picture recently? If this is just a Halloween joke, please say so, a lot of us are worried you got hacked.

hi anon! I did in fact change my avatar and username for a little halloween fun, and stayed silent because I wanted to see people's reaction. Not a lot of people responded to it, so I figured most folks either didn't notice or weren't really into it. I had no idea people thought I got hacked! Thank you for letting me know! Rest assured, I haven't clicked any suspicious links (although do be careful, another false Discord Nitro phishing link is making the rounds again) or gotten hacked.

My avatar/nickname will change again for Halloween night (either the 30th or the 31st, possibly both days) and after that I will revert back to my usual name/avatar combo.

Thank you again for letting me know! I apologize for causing unintentional fretting, it's not my intention to worry you folks. I'll try to make it more obvious when I'm goofing around. And thank you for caring about me, it warms my heart <3

show, don't tell:

anticipation - bouncing legs - darting eyes - breathing deeply - useless / mindless tasks - eyes on the clock - checking and re-checking

frustration - grumbling - heavy footsteps - hot flush - narrowed eyes - pointing fingers - pacing / stomping

sadness - eyes filling up with tears - blinking quickly - hiccuped breaths - face turned away - red / burning cheeks - short sentences with gulps

happiness - smiling / cheeks hurting - animated - chest hurts from laughing - rapid movements - eye contact - quick speaking

boredom - complaining - sighing - grumbling - pacing - leg bouncing - picking at nails

fear - quick heartbeat - shaking / clammy hands - pinching self - tuck away - closing eyes - clenched hands

disappointment - no eye contact - hard swallow - clenched hands - tears, occasionally - mhm-hmm

tiredness - spacing out - eyes closing - nodding head absently - long sighs - no eye contact - grim smile

confidence - prolonged eye contact - appreciates instead of apologizing - active listening - shoulders back - micro reactions

this brings me joy

crocs

Ohhhhh, well I will be picking this up to give to krok so he can have his actionmaster partner

Last few posts (including this one) aren’t gator-related so they feel a little weird to reblog but hey I need a palate cleanser and maybe this will brings others joy too

when we try to befriend cats we mimic their meows and get down on the ground to their level and try to gently coax them to interact with us right

that horrifying entity mimicking human noises at us maybe just thinks we’re cool and wants to pet us?

O great goldfish, I have a question. What happens to crocodiles/alligators when their skin dries out? Does it get stiff, or cracked? Do their scales start to peel? Thank you for the animal wisdom

nothin, their skin is pretty impermeable and doesn't actually dry out all the way unless the animal dies first!

crocodilians live just fine in arid environments as long as there's a body of water for them drink and hunt in, the hot dry winds don't hurt them near as badly as the lack of water does out there.

refseek.com

www.worldcat.org/

link.springer.com

http://bioline.org.br/

repec.org

science.gov

pdfdrive.com

I think everybody needs to see this hilarious little thing that was posted to the official Puss in Boots tiktok. It's a parody of that one Old Spice commercial.

Zack could use some help! The link to their Gumroad will be reblogged.

All of their stuff in Gumroad is GREAT! I recommend The Activity Club and The Final Hole and Everlasting!