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World Sports Business News >> Science Why old habits die hard New York | November 01, 2005 9:15:06 AM IST Bad habits, as smokers know, are hard to break and easy to resume. A team of cognitive scientists now offers a better understanding of why that is so. Important neural activity patterns in a specific region of the brain change when habits are formed, they change again when habits are broken, but quickly re-emerge when something rekindles an extinguished habit -- routines that originally took great effort to learn, says a new study in a Nature issue. "We knew that neurons can change their firing patterns when habits are learned, but it is startling to find that these patterns reverse when the habit is lost, only to recur again as soon as something kicks off the habit again," Ann Graybiel of the McGovern Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who led the study said in an MIT release. The patterns in question occur in the basal ganglia, a brain region that is critical to habits, addiction and procedural learning. Malfunctions in the basal ganglia occur in Parkinson's disease, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and many neuro-psychiatric disorders. "We tried to simulate the learning and forgetting of a habit," said Yasuo Kubota, a research scientist in Graybiel's lab where experiments were conducted on rats. "If a learned pattern remains in the brain after the behaviour is extinguished, maybe that's why it's so difficult to change a habit." Graybiel said: "It is as though somehow, the brain retains a memory of the habit context, and this pattern can be triggered if the right habit cues come back." "This situation is familiar to anyone who is trying to lose weight or to control a well-engrained habit. Just the sight of a piece of chocolate cake can reset all those good intentions," she said. "Once we start, we run on autopilot -- until we stop. Certain disorders hint at the potential importance of those spikes. Parkinson's patients, for instance, have difficulty starting to walk, and obsessive-compulsive people have trouble stopping an incessant activity. "We are hopeful that this may be a key to understanding how to treat bad habits like addiction, and also how to encourage good habits that benefit health and happiness," Graybiel said. "We think that these patterns will also help researchers to understand the fundamental problems in disorders such as Parkinson's disease, OCD and Tourette syndrome," she said. (IANS) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn