Scientists from Queen's University of Ontario (Canada) have identified the area of the human brain that is behind impulsive behavior , as well as the mechanisms that affect how we learn to control it.
"In class, children often miss the answers to the questions their teachers ask even before raising their hands. Over time they manage to keep their mouths closed and do not raise their hands, but wait until the teacher you ask, "explains study co-author Scott Hayton. ? We wanted to understand how the brain learns this ,? he adds.
To find out, Hayton's team trained rats to control their impulsive responses until they gave them a signal. As they learned to control impulses, the scientists detected stronger signals between specific neurons in their frontal lobes . And they concluded that impulsivity, or its control, produces a change in communication between neurons .
Impulsivity is a primary feature of many disorders, including drug and alcohol addiction and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Knowing the region and the mechanism that controls impulses is a critical step in its diagnosis and treatment, according to the authors of the study, which is published in the Journal of Neuroscience .
