Want to stick with your diet? Better have someone hide the chocolate

gm349 — Thu, 25 Jul 2013 07:03:35 +0000

If you are trying to lose weight or save for the future, new research suggests avoiding temptation may increase your chances of success compared to relying on willpower alone. 探花直播study on self-control by researchers from the Universities of Cambridge and Dusseldorf was published today in the journal Neuron.

探花直播researchers compared the effectiveness of willpower versus voluntarily restricting access to temptations, called 鈥榩recommitment鈥�. (Examples of precommitment include avoiding purchasing unhealthy food and putting money in savings accounts with hefty withdrawal fees.) They also examined the mechanisms in the brain that play a role in precommitment to better understand why it is so effective.

Molly Crockett, who undertook the research while at the 探花直播 of Cambridge and is currently a Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow at UCL, said: 鈥淥ur research suggests that the most effective way to beat temptations is to avoid facing them in the first place.鈥�

For the study, the researchers recruited healthy male volunteers and gave them聽 a series of choices: they had to decide between a tempting 鈥渟mall reward鈥� available immediately, or a 鈥渓arge reward鈥� available after a delay. Small rewards were mildly enjoyable erotic pictures and large rewards were extremely enjoyable erotic pictures. Since erotic pictures are immediately rewarding at the time of viewing, the researchers were able to probe the mechanisms of self-control as they unfolded in real-time. ( 探花直播scientists could not use money, for example, since subjects could only reap the rewards of money once they left the lab.)

For some of the choices, the small reward was continuously available, and subjects had to exert willpower to resist choosing it until the large reward became available. But for other choices, subjects were given the opportunity to precommit: before the tempting option became available, they had the ability to prevent themselves from ever encountering the temptation.

探花直播scientists measured people's choices and brain activity as they made these decisions. They found that precommitment was a more effective self-control strategy than willpower 鈥� subjects were more likely to get the large reward when they had the opportunity to precommit. They also found that the most impulsive people (those with the weakest willpower) benefited the most from precommitment.

探花直播scientists were also able to identify the regions of the brain that play a role in willpower and precommitment. They found that precommitment specifically activates the frontopolar cortex, a region that is involved in thinking about the future. Additionally, when the frontopolar cortex is engaged during precommitment, it increases its communication with a region that plays an important role in willpower, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. By identifying the brain networks involved in willpower and precommitment, the research opens new avenues for understanding failures of self-control.

Tobias Kalenscher, co-author on the paper from 探花直播 of Dusseldorf, said: 鈥� 探花直播brain data is exciting because it hints at a mechanism for how precommitment works: thinking about the future may engage frontopolar regions, which by virtue of their connections with the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex are able to guide behaviour toward precommitment.鈥�

For more information about this story, please contact: Genevieve Maul, Office of Communications, 探花直播 of Cambridge. Email: Genevieve.Maul@admin.cam.ac.uk; Tel: 01223 765542.

Study indicates that removing a temptation is more effective than relying on willpower alone.

Our research suggests that the most effective way to beat temptations is to avoid facing them in the first place.

Molly Crockett

Zingyellow from Flickr

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Yes

Antidepressants can alter peoples鈥� moral judgement

bjb42 — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

探花直播new research, by scientists at the 探花直播 of Cambridge's Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, discovered that healthy volunteers given drugs which increase their serotonin, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI), have an increased aversion to harming others, viewing such actions as morally forbidden.

Ms Molly Crockett of the Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute (a Medical Research Council and Wellcome Trust funded initiative) is the lead author of the paper. She said: "Our study suggests that these medications can affect people's sense of right and wrong, which influences the choices they make in everyday life.

"Interestingly, the drug's effects were strongest in people who were naturally high in empathy, suggesting that serotonin could enhance people's concern for others by making the prospect of harming them feel worse."

Antidepressants, which include SSRIs like the one used in the study, are among the most widely prescribed drugs worldwide. In the United States and the UK, an estimated ten per cent of the population take antidepressants for a range of psychiatric and medical conditions.

探花直播Cambridge researchers measured the drug's effects on moral judgement by giving the participants 'dilemmas' which pitted beneficial outcomes (e.g., saving five lives) against highly unpleasant harmful actions (e.g., killing an innocent person). Individuals with increased serotonin were far more likely to judge the harmful actions as morally wrong even when such actions would result in significant benefits.

探花直播participants' aversion to harming others, on the grounds that it was morally objectionable, was also apparent on a different test in which subjects decide whether to accept or reject fair or unfair splits of a sum of money from another player. People tend to reject unfair offers as an act of retaliation, because rejecting offers harms the other player financially. Subjects taking the SSRI were less likely to reject unfair offers, possibly because they were reluctant to hurt the other players financially.

A previous study by the same research group had found that decreasing serotonin made people more likely to retaliate against unfairness.

探花直播most common type of antidepressants, serotonin enhancers, alters peoples moral judgement and leads to a reduction in aggressive behaviour, a study published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has found.

Our study suggests that these medications can affect people's sense of right and wrong, which influences the choices they make in everyday life.

Molly Crockett

Amanda Hatfield

Antidepressants

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探花直播 of Cambridge - Molly Crockett

Want to stick with your diet? Better have someone hide the chocolate

Antidepressants can alter peoples鈥� moral judgement