Your Brain Has Brakes!

Is it the civilized mind that allows us to choose as opposed to react? Lisa Gates wonders... Hmmm... I've seen a golfer hit the ground hard with his club when he flubbed a shot, whereas other players calmly pick up former pace to drive the next shots down the fairway. And once a golfer flubs, seems his next balls land in the pond, in the trees and deep grass. What is it that helps us make choices rather than reacting? Great question you asked, Lisa, for the Question Train on Mind and Brain series. Recent research on the brain sheds new light on answers...

Braking System The human brain has a neural braking network that kicks in just long enough for people to make a quick decisions according to researchers at University of California, San Diego... As study participants planned an action, listened for a stop signal and made a quick choice to continue or to stop, researchers tracked MRI's to observe brain activity. They discovered

One of the connected regions was the subthalamic nucleus, within the deep-seated midbrain, which is an interface with the motor system and can be considered a 'stop button' or the brake itself. A second region was in the right inferior frontal cortex, a region near the temple, where the control signal to put on the brakes probably comes from.

How does that translate to everyday life?

Just enough time to choose! "We've known for some time about key brain areas involved in controlling behavior," Adam Aaron, lead researcher, explains, "and now we're learning how they're connected and how it is that the information can get from one place to the other really fast." So the brain's neural braking network gives humans just a few milliseconds to make a decision. That's just enough time to react by throwing a golf club to the ground or stop and make a choice to forget it and move calmly to the next shot!

Genes may play a part Aaron theorizes that "Variability in the density and thickness of the 'cable' connections is probably influenced by genes." Further research will show us more.

Researcher Read Montague of Baylor University, claims in Why Choose this Book? that our brains evolved computational programs to evaluate choices in terms of their value and efficiency: "Those that accurately estimate the costs and the long term benefits of choices will be more efficient that those who don't."

By using MRI's, Montague found brands such as Coke, "change dopamine delivery to various brain regains through their effect on reward prediction circuitry." Interestingly, Coke's "flavor" is distinguished in the brain's prefrontal cortex, a region essential for making choices. That sheds light on why we develop favorite brands!

Choosing, not reacting Remember how people advised us to count to ten before "reacting?" If you're like me and sometimes feel like throwing a golf club into the pond after bad shots, there's good news... Because of the brain's plasticity, you can rewire it to stop before you react. Sometimes that means counting to ten or instantly recalling a happy tune or whatever it takes to move you out of an initial emotion. The more times you consciously stop to put on the brakes, the more dendrites you'll build for time to choose! That gives you space to use good tone both during golf and in the workplace that Ellen Weber describes.

Lisa, in the second part of your question you note, "Perhaps what I'm asking is the difference between neo-cortex, limbic, reptilian, all of that, and how it relates to us civilized humans trying to choose in our everyday life." Since the human brain is more complex than that of animals, we can make choices whereas an animal reacts more from instinct.

What an intriguing question to answer, Lisa!

Any more thoughts on this?