Researchers Find Why It's So Hard To Break Bad Habits

We're almost a month into those New Year resolutions, but many have already broken them or failed. If you count yourself among those individuals, your lack of success might be due to the seemingly impossible task of breaking a habit — bad or otherwise. It's well established that changing one's ways isn't easy, and researchers have discovered why — you're literally going against your programming.

According to a new report in the journal Neuron, Duke University researchers have found evidence that forming a habit creates its own mark on brain circuits, ramping up "go" and "stop" circuits but altering the order in which they fired.

In lab mice that didn't form a sugar habit, researchers found the "stop" pathway turned on before the "go" pathway, whereas in mice that had formed a sugar habit, the "go" pathway turned on first. These pathways were so tailored to habits that researchers found they could predict which mice had habits by looking at the brain.

These pathway changes are described as being long lasting. When trying to change the habits, researchers found using rewards were most effective if the mice had weak go cells. While unfortunate news for those who find it troublesome to change a long-standing habit, it could prove good news for researchers. Now that these changes have been identified, the future may hold new therapies that aid drug addicts and more.

SOURCE: EurekAlert