Brain Patterns for “Winning Mindset” Discovered!

Understanding of how the mammalian brain encodes social rank and uses this information to shape behavior (such as whether to fight for the last pizza slice) has been discovered by a study at the Salk Institute, published in Nature. The team discovered that the patterns of brain activity in mice differ depending on the social rank of the opposing animal.

For example, if you’re reaching for the last piece of pizza at a party and see another hand going for it at the same time, your next move probably depends both on how you feel and whom the hand belongs to. Your little sister — you might go ahead and grab the pizza. Your boss — you’re probably more likely to step back and give up the slice. But if you’re hungry and feeling particularly confident, you might go for it.

Moreover, the scientists could use brain readouts to accurately predict which animal would win a food reward — the victor was not always the more socially dominant animal, but the one more engaged in a “winning mindset.”

“Most social species organize themselves into hierarchies that guide each individual’s behaviour. Understanding how the brain mediates this may help us understand the interplay between social rank, isolation, and psychiatric diseases, such as depression, anxiety, or even substance abuse,” says senior author Kay Tye, professor in Salk’s Systems Neurobiology Laboratory and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.

Source-Medindia