Why a long day at the office can be just as exhausting as the gym: THINK too hard leads to a buildup of toxic chemicals in your brain, a study shows
- Neuroscientists have discovered the reason for our mental fatigue
- After strenuous work, a harmful chemical begins to build up in the brain
- To avoid further circulation, the brain shifts to low-effort activities
- This manifests itself in a lack of motivation and a reduced ability to concentrate
Are you sometimes physically exhausted after a long day at work, even if you just sat at the computer?
Scientists have found that there is a reason for this, as a toxic chemical builds up in the brain after it has been active for a long time.
The brain therefore shifts to actions that require less effort to stop avoiding the circulation of this chemical glutamate.
According to neuroscientists at Pitié-Salpêtrière University in Paris, France, this manifests itself in a lack of enthusiasm for work or cognitive exhaustion.
dr Mathias Pessiglione, who led the study, said: “Influential theories have suggested that fatigue is a type of illusion invented by the brain to trick us into stopping whatever we are doing and turning to a more satisfying activity .
“But our results show that cognitive work leads to a real functional change – a build-up of harmful substances – so that fatigue would actually be a signal leading us to stop working, but for a different purpose: improving the integrity of brain function maintain.”
Scientists have found that mental fatigue is caused by a toxic chemical building up in the brain after being active for a long time
WHAT IS GLUTAMATE?
Glutamate is a neurotransmitter — a chemical that nerve cells use to send signals to other cells, such as those in the brain.
It is used to activate all major excitatory functions in the vertebrate brain.
For your brain to function properly, glutamate needs to be present in the right concentrations in the right places at the right time.
Too much glutamate has been linked to diseases like Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and Huntington’s disease
Physical fatigue is a direct result of strenuous physical work; instead, long thinking leads to mental exhaustion, which entails symptoms such as lack of motivation and concentration.
In the study published today in Current Biology, researchers set out to understand what mental fatigue really is and why it occurs.
To do this, they used magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) to monitor brain chemistry over the course of a workday in two groups of study participants.
They divided the group into easy and difficult computer-based memory tasks, which required them to memorize and match a series of differently colored letters for nearly six and a half hours.
The results showed that people with more difficult tasks were more likely to choose options that offered lower rewards for less effort or that arrived faster.
Next, the scientists looked at their levels of glutamate in the synapses of the brain’s prefrontal cortex and found that it was higher in the group doing the more mentally strenuous task.
The authors say this supports their hypothesis that accumulation of glutamate causes the brain to switch to lower-exertion activities.
This prevents this potentially toxic chemical, which could impair brain function, from cycling or further accumulating.
It was found that glutamate levels in the synapses of the brain’s prefrontal cortex were higher in those in the tougher work group. Left: The left lateral prefrontal region was found to show decreased activity with cognitive fatigue. Right: The voxel examined by magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) to monitor glutamate levels
Study participants’ normalized glutamate concentration levels across the five task sessions. Blue: easy tasks. Orange: difficult tasks
Researchers hope this finding can provide a new way to detect severe mental fatigue and inform work schedules to avoid burnout.
In future studies, they hope to improve understanding of why the prefrontal cortex is so vulnerable to glutamate accumulation and fatigue following neural activity.
They’re also curious to know if the same markers of fatigue in the brain can predict recovery from health problems like depression or cancer.
There is no way around this limitation of our thinking, but Dr.
According to a study, listening to “groovy” music like ABBA or the Bee Gees can boost brain power
Scientists have discovered that listening to “groovy” music from artists like the Bee Gees or ABBA can actually boost brain power.
The results of a study by Tsukuba University in Japan found that songs with a groove rhythm improve the listener’s “executive function”.
Executive function is a set of mental skills that enable us to plan, focus attention, remember, and multitask.
However, these results were only observed in participants who were familiar with groove music or who had a good rhythm.
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