Sometimes, watching just that one extra episode of GoT is, as the classic Aussie slang goes, all a little “too easy”, but are you really just being a couch potato, or is there something deeper at work here? This question comes from the discovery of an area of the brain that could control a person’s motivation to exercise and engage in other beneficial activities. Thanks to the scientists at Seattle Children’s Research Institute (SCRI), this also means potential improvements for depression treatments.
The SCRI’s Centre for Integrative Research’s principal investigator, Dr. Eric Turner, and lead author Dr. Yun-Wei (Toni) Hsu, discovered that this tiny region – the dorsal medial habenula – controls the willingness of mice to get up and go. It’s already well-known that exercise gets the big thumbs up when it comes to non-pharmacological depression therapies and the similarity of the habenula structure between rodents and humans, means it’s likely both species share these basic functions in mood regulation and motivation.
In one group, signals from this precious habenula precinct were genetically engineered (GE) to be blocked, and in comparison to the control mice (who relished in a bit of a wheel workout) the GE mice were slothful, and not only turned their nose up at a run, but at the option of sweetened drinking water too.
To flip this sitch a 180, Dr Turner’s team used optogenetics (a radical combinatory field that can probe neural circuits) to give a second group of mice the option to “choose” to activate the habenula, by using their paws to turn one of two response wheels. The mice’s preference solidly lied with the wheel linked to stimulation of the dorsal medial habenula; this substantiates that rewarding behaviour is linked to this area of the brain.
So, why am I harping on about mice and to what extent they delight in a post-jog sugar juice? As a professor who treats depression at the University of Washington Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences, i’ll let Dr. Turner explain: “Traditional methods of stimulation could not isolate this part of the brain…But cutting edge technology at the SCRI makes discoveries like this possible.” adding his hope that this research will make a difference to the lives of future patients suffering from depression.
Note to all sofa-spuds (mainly self): Dr. Turner also noted that even the GE mice “were physically capable of running but appeared unmotivated to do” so, meaning even if we are feeling a little on the lazy and lowly side of life, we still (uuuuuusually, if we twy wheely, wheely hard) have the capacity to put the 319oz of Häagen-Dazs down and smash the Reebok Retros on for a mild hop-skip.
But hallelujah for a happy habenula!
Keep On, Questioning On – T.Raynes
