Summary: New study has shown that cognitive fatigue makes advantages like sugary treats more appealing. When both animals and humans worked at their mental systems, they sought out more benefits, with rats consuming more cocaine on their own and people recommending snacks as tastier.
This suggests that cognitive fatigue promotes the need for benefits rather than merely reducing resolve. The findings offer insights into managing dependency and harmful behaviors, showing how intellectual work can affect decision-making.
Important Facts:
- The perceived suitability of rewards is enhanced by mental energy.
- After completing challenging tasks, both animals and humans sought greater benefits.
- The research provides insight into overcoming habit and unhealthy behaviors.
Origin: PNAS Nexus
Mental stress may produce rewards more attractive, according to a research in rats and humans.
Making bad choices has been associated with exerting mental energy. The website has previously been explained by weakening antagonistic power or willpower.
Marcello Solinas and colleagues examine the possibility that mental effort may also increase the perceived reward for bad decisions by making them more appealing.
More cocaine was administered to rats who completed a intellectually demanding activity than animals who did not complete the task or who were given time to rest after 2 to 4 hours.
More potato cards were consumed by humans who were given a task that necessitated significant mental effort, such as suppressing the thought of a white bear while listing other thoughts, and were rated as better-tasting than controls who had not completed the effortful work, suggesting that cognitive work increased the participants ‘ hedonic knowledge of snacking on the salt and fatty meal.
A follow-up study using challenging and simple writing tasks found that ratings of chocolate increased after mental effort but ratings of the length of a pen or the brightness of a golden post-it note did no. To rule out the possibility that mental effort increases the likelihood that  , humans  , make serious judgments in public.
The authors suggest that in some circumstances, this sequence may be responsive rather than just a byproduct of development. The authors believe that the findings have an impact on how to treat dependency and other harmful behaviors.
About this reports about cognitive neuroscience research
Author: Marcello Solinas
Source: PNAS Nexus
Contact: Marcello Solinas – PNAS Nexus
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Start exposure.
” Cognitive work increases the power of advantages,” by Marcello Solinas and colleagues. PNAS Nexus
Abstract
The reward power rises as a result of mental effort.
An essential body of literature suggests that powerful cognitive work results in mental exhaustion and can lead to harmful behaviors like eating high-calorie foods and using drugs.
Mental effort may also bias cognitive decisions by amplifying the hedonic and psychological impact of rewards, which has been largely explained by weakening mental control.
We report studies that support this hypothesis in humans and animals. In rats, soon after consuming cocaine by themselves, putting in cognitive effort substantially increased drug intake. In contrast, exerting mental work increased the psychostimulant influence of cocaine.
The effects of mental energy on addiction-related behaviors were eliminated and also reversed when animals may sleep in their home-cage for 2–4 h before entry to cocaine self-administration.
We found that spending more of our cognitive power on humans led to a higher consumption of tasty ( but unhealthy ) food by enhancing the hedonic enjoyment of the food. In addition, the effects were specific for emotionally relevant stimuli ( i. e. food rewards ) and did not generalize to judgment about neutral objects.
Together, these findings suggest that intense cognitive work can increase the degree of perceived reward and cause them to overconsumpt.
This could make people more prone to engaging in unhealthy behaviors, such as using addictive drugs, and make poor decision-making worse as a result of excessive cognitive effort.
