Brain study finds circuits that may help you keep your cool
The big day has come: You are taking your road test to get your driver’s license. As you start your mom’s car with a stern-faced evaluator in the passenger seat, you know you’ll need to be alert but not so excited that you make mistakes. Even if you are simultaneously sleep-deprived and full of nervous energy, you need your brain to moderate your level of arousal so that you do your best. Now a new study by neuroscientists at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory might help to explain how the brain strikes that balance. “Human beings perform optimally at an intermediate level of alertness and arousal, where they are attending to appropriate stimuli rather than being either anxious or somnolent,” says Mriganka Sur, the Paul and Lilah E. Newton Professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. “But how does this come about?” Postdoc Vincent Breton-Provencher brought this question to the...