We all make mistakes but what matters to the brain is the severity of the mistake. Michigan scientists are learning how a mistake that is committed by a person affects the brain. University of Michigan researchers used an imaging scan to view the human brain the instant a costly mistake occurs. Dr. Stephan Taylor, an associate professor of psychiatry and lead author of the research said that the experiment was carried on to mainly understand about the mental health problems. The findings of the study were presented in the journal of Neuroscience.
The scientists found the brain’s rostral anterior cingulate cortex, or rACC, becomes much more active when a person realizes making an error of some consequence. But it doesn’t show the same activity when the mistake is minor or doesn’t carry a penalty. The rACC is thought to be involved with emotional responses, and scientists had suspected it might also be involved in response to costly errors. But this is the first brain-imaging study to test that idea. Hence they cannot tell it for sure as various studies have to be done to prove it. In general, the response to a mistake that cost money was greater than the response to other mistakes. It shows the involvement of the rACC region suggesting the importance of emotions in decision and performance-monitoring processes.
