A Laser To The Brain Eliminates Bad Habits In Rats
Habit Control Your pre-frontal cortex, where thought and planning occurs, also switches your habits on and off. Wikimedia CommonsMIT researchers have identified and manipulated the part of the brain that controls habits. Neuroscientists at MIT have identified the region of the brain that switches between old and new habits. In the study, researchers trained rats to run in a T-shaped maze. They would receive chocolate milk for turning left or sugar water for turning right. When the researchers took away the rewards, the rats who had learned to turn left continued to do so, even though they weren't benefitting in any way. Even when the researchers added nausea-inducing lithium chloride to the chocolate milk, the rats still turned to the left. This is how the researchers knew that the habit was pretty deeply ingrained. The next step was to use optogenetics to inhibit cells in the infralimbic cortex--a region inside the...