Habit is called a deep-rooted form of behaviour, which works independently from our consciousness. We automatically find in the morning the way to the kitchen and on the machine, go to the transport (or sit in the car), not really thinking over what we do. It is believed that the usual action of help to relieve the brain from the routine, allowing him to do something more important. That is, from the point of view of neurophysiology unloaded resources prefrontal cortex, our main analytical center, meet, let's say, for conscious life. The habit goes in subcortical structures, called the basal ganglia.

Biting his fingers, like many other habits, hiding in the cortex of the brain. (Photo By Bob Thomas / Corbis.)

However, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of technology (USA) found that the habit completely from the bark of the brain do not go away. Scientists experimented with rats that were trained to turn left or right at the T-shaped maze, depending on what they heard. If the rat turned right, left or right, the branch was waiting for her award - chocolate milk or sweetened water. To make sure that such behavior was included in animals in the habit, researchers removed the remuneration and rats still sound signal fled there, where before it was a treat. Scientists have gone further and slipped to treat the lithium chloride, causing nausea, - but rats are still ran to where told habit.

Obviously, the habit has ceased to perform its useful function, became meaningless and even harmful. As it is possible in this case to get rid of? And here is how. In an article published in PNAS, researchers report that if you block the work infralimbic crust, the habit will disappear. Using optogenetics methods they suppressed activity of neurons of this section of the prefrontal cortex, after which the rat ran to the fork in the maze, suddenly included "consciousness" and did not go in for a treat, from which it was vomiting. That is the brain of the animal as if she knew what to expect, but these data were not considered because of the strong influence of habit. Once the habit is suppressed, the purpose of behavior and the behavior itself was adequate to each other.

However, instead of rats formed a new habit: in response to the "left" signal animals began to run to the right. And this habit can be destroyed by disabling the neuron infralimbic crust. But then in rats was restored old habit: hearing "left" signal, the commander in whatever was left to run, even if there waiting for you nauseous "treatment", they obeyed him.

That is, this section of the prefrontal cortex is something warehouse and simultaneously switch habits. Although new habits and benefit, old do not disappear, but is stored in infralimbic cortex and can be drawn to the light at the first opportunity.

Information about what kind of nervous structures control the habits and, in General, automatic behavior, can be extremely valuable for psychologists and psychiatrists. Affecting, for example, on infralimbic bark, you can save people from neuroses and dependency: it only remains to develop clinical method, which would allow to make such an impact.

Based on the materials of the MIT News.