14 DAY TRIAL // How hard you are willing to work on any given day is apparently dictated by how much of the neurotransmitter dopamine you have in your brain, the conclusions of a scientific investigation show.
The research was carried out using a brain-mapping technique called positron emission tomography (PET), which revealed that elevated dopamine concentrations in areas of the brain known to control motivation and reward make people work harder for their goals.
Details of the investigation were published in the May 2 issue of the esteemed Journal of Neuroscience. Its conclusions could be used to investigate the altered sense of motivation that psychiatrists are seeing in depressed and addicted patients, which may in turn lead to the development of new therapies.
Interestingly, the new study revealed that people who were unwilling to work hard had elevated dopamine concentrations in the anterior insula, an area of the brain known to play a role in coding for risk perception and emotion, PsychCentral reports.