Image: Composite Creative Commons Lee McCoy & Kyle McDonald
Why stressed people fall into habits rather than to act purposefully, cognitive psychologists have discovered the Ruhr-University and their colleagues at the University Hospital Bergmannsheil (Prof. Dr. Martin Tegenthoff). The team led by Dr. Lars Schwabe and Professor Oliver Wolf of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience seized drugs with a stressful situation for the body. Then she studied with functional magnetic resonance imaging of brain activity. In the Journal of Neuroscience, the researchers report that the interaction of the stress hormones cortisol and norepinephrine drove down the activity of brain regions for goal-directed behavior. The brain regions that are responsible for habit-based behavior remained unaffected
Two stress hormones in action
To test the effect of various stress hormones, cognitive psychologists put the three ingredients: a placebo, the stress hormone cortisol and Yohimibin, which ensures that the stress hormone norepinephrine remains active longer. A portion of the subjects received only cortisol or just Yohimibin, other volunteers, both substances. The fourth group received a placebo. Overall, the data were received from 69 subjects in the study. [continue reading…]
