dolf
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http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/body_and_soul/article3051308.ece
thickies, your days are numbered
WE ALL make mistakes, but some of us seem fated to go through life repeating the same ones again and again. Now German scientists claim to have found why: they have identified a gene linked to serial stupidity. They report in the journal Science that a variation in the DNA of a gene operating within the brain seems to impair a person’s ability to change their ways based on knowledge of previous errors. The investigators, from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, say that the mutation in the A1 gene leaves people with fewer chemical receptors called D2, which can detect that levels of dopamine, the brain’s pleasure chemical, have dropped.
Dopamine levels rise when you feel pleasure and the brain uses it as a reward system when you learn something useful. The investigators theorised that if a person lacked D2 receptors, then they might not notice when they had done something dopamine-plungingly dumb instead.
They tested this on a group of 26 men, 12 of whom had the gene mutation for low numbers of gene receptors. As a part of the study the subjects were shown sets of two symbols on a computer screen, and were asked to select one. The choice was followed by either a smiley face or a frown flashing on the screen.
The researchers then tested to check whether the men had learnt to choose the symbol that was the most positively reinforced and avoid the one that was the most negatively reinforced. They found that men with fewer D2 receptors had trouble avoiding their mistakes.
Brain imaging subsequently showed that a brain region key to forming memories, the hippocampus, was also more active in the volunteers with normal D2 levels.
thickies, your days are numbered
WE ALL make mistakes, but some of us seem fated to go through life repeating the same ones again and again. Now German scientists claim to have found why: they have identified a gene linked to serial stupidity. They report in the journal Science that a variation in the DNA of a gene operating within the brain seems to impair a person’s ability to change their ways based on knowledge of previous errors. The investigators, from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, say that the mutation in the A1 gene leaves people with fewer chemical receptors called D2, which can detect that levels of dopamine, the brain’s pleasure chemical, have dropped.
Dopamine levels rise when you feel pleasure and the brain uses it as a reward system when you learn something useful. The investigators theorised that if a person lacked D2 receptors, then they might not notice when they had done something dopamine-plungingly dumb instead.
They tested this on a group of 26 men, 12 of whom had the gene mutation for low numbers of gene receptors. As a part of the study the subjects were shown sets of two symbols on a computer screen, and were asked to select one. The choice was followed by either a smiley face or a frown flashing on the screen.
The researchers then tested to check whether the men had learnt to choose the symbol that was the most positively reinforced and avoid the one that was the most negatively reinforced. They found that men with fewer D2 receptors had trouble avoiding their mistakes.
Brain imaging subsequently showed that a brain region key to forming memories, the hippocampus, was also more active in the volunteers with normal D2 levels.
