M.I.T. Explains Why Bad Habits Are Hard to Break

Ant writes "CNET News.com says habitual activity (e.g., smoking, eating fatty foods, gambling, etc.) changes neural activity patterns in a specific region of the brain when habits are formed. These neural patterns created by habit can be changed or altered. But when a stimulus from the old days returns, the dormant pattern can reassert itself, according to a new study from the M.I.T., putting an individual in a neural state akin to being on autopilot... The neural patterns get established in the basal ganglia, a brain region critical to habits, addiction and procedural learning."

Comments

What we already knew

[ReverendLoki]

Hell, any former smoker could tell you this much. I smoked for less than a decade, and I quit over 5 years ago, no relapses. However, sometimes an almost reflex gets triggered by the smell of tobacco, or just seeing a cigarrette, and it's like my arm itches to go through the motions, what I've seen described as a "ritual" of sorts, of lighting a smoke. This all occurs in my mind a split second before the conscious mind kicks in and realizes what is occurring, and takes control again.

Trust me, this is a very accurate description of how some of these habits ingrain themselves into your mind.

Re:What we already knew

[dankasfuk]

Part of that response it thought to involve the nucleus accumbens, thought to play an important part in the reward pathway. It's also closely tied to the basal ganglia and the amygdala (part of the 'emotional' brain).

Could be your liver

[cshay]

People with liver problems often stop wanting to smoke.

Article abstract

[Oxen]

Here is a link to the primary article.
 
And here is the abstract:
Learning to perform a behavioural procedure as a well-ingrained habit requires extensive repetition of the behavioural sequence, and learning not to perform such behaviours is notoriously difficult. Yet regaining a habit can occur quickly, with even one or a few exposures to cues previously triggering the behaviour. To identify neural mechanisms that might underlie such learning dynamics, we made long-term recordings from multiple neurons in the sensorimotor striatum, a basal ganglia structure implicated in habit formation in rats successively trained on a reward-based procedural task, given extinction training and then given reacquisition training. The spike activity of striatal output neurons, nodal points in cortico-basal ganglia circuits, changed markedly across multiple dimensions during each of these phases of learning. First, new patterns of task-related ensemble firing successively formed, reversed and then re-emerged. Second, task-irrelevant firing was suppressed, then rebounded, and then was suppressed again. These changing spike activity patterns were highly correlated with changes in behavioural performance. We propose that these changes in task representation in cortico-basal ganglia circuits represent neural equivalents of the explore-exploit behaviour characteristic of habit learning.

Re:HELP

[SparafucileMan]

nicotine patches.

the first few days will still suck ass, but you can compensate by drinking heavily. then you just wind down the patches over the course of another 6 weeks.

i've 'quit' cold turkey before and i was surprised how much easier it was with a long, gradual decline in nicotine that the patches provided. no sense is quiting cold turkey and letting the nicotine fuck you in the ass just for a few less weeks of your quiting process.

Re:mystery solved, I hope this isn't hopeless

[yali]

On a behavioral level, this finding is nothing new. Hermann Ebbinghaus introduced the idea of savings in relearning in the 19th century. This finding has been replicated countless different ways, including being replicated in neural network simulations.

Nor is it news that this involves neurons. Hint to cnet: all of mental life involves neurons.

What's scientifically interesting is which neurons are involved. The researchers are trying to map out the circuits involved in order to better understand the underlying process. That is at least potentially interesting.

My followup question is, is it possible to break these patterns, ever? Or are we destined for eternity to be creatures of our own habits? Should we stop buying self-help books?

One way to break an association is to develop a competing association. If Stimulus A triggers Response B, then you develop a new association between Stimulus A with Response C. That makes it harder to fall victim to the savings-in-relearning effect when you're faced with Stimulus A in the future, because you won't just be left hanging to try to suppress your impulse to respond with B.

And yes, you should stop buying self-help books.

Re:How about good habits

[dogmatixpsych]

Yep, it's the same system. I teach a behavioral neurobiology class at a university and we just got done talking about addictions and addiction research. It's all the same basal ganglia system (particularly the neucleus accumbens, as someone previously pointed out). The dopamine-producing neurons there (and other parts of the dopaminergic system) respond to anything pleasurable (food, sex, etc.). When drugs make people feel good, they are activating this system. Good habits would be formed through this same system (although it might take more work with exercise for example, because many people actually do not like to exercise - they may like the effects of it but how many people actually love how running a marathon make them feel (I'm not talking about some sense of accomplishment)? How do you feel after doing strenuous exercise? Usually not that great initially). So I should qualify my remarke and say that if the good habit truly produces physical pleasure, then those habits would also be formed and intensified in this circuit.

Re:Nothing new, just not commonly known

[Keighvin]

The parent makes a very inaccurate assumption of why habits are hard to break.

The brain does not independently attempt to reinforce any particular pattern of its own accord - not even the subconsciousness performs this level of autonomous subversive activity.

However - the limbik region responsible for manifesting motivation and associating that motivation with behavior makes it feel that way. Which is to say, if someone smokes to relieve stress, and then stops smoking, that stress no longer has the familiar outlet. As the stress then continues to build, the limbik system increases the negative pressure associated with the typical relief and the urge to resume the habit also increases. However, if the stress (or whatever outlet or positive association [such as socialization or pleasurable sensation]) resumes a separate outlet, the motivation is satiated and the originally satisfying habit is more easily overridden.

The brain does not have an effective back-end cron process for optimization - it does well what it does *frequently*, and is a very very reactive organ.