At
Loyola University-Chicago I am currently enrolled in a class called
Neuroscience Seminar where each week we have a new speaker come in and they
talk about their current research in the neuroscience field. On January 26th, 2016 we had
Dr. Brian Sweis came in who is currently in the University of Minnesota
M.D./PhD program. The research that Dr. Brian Sweis did was based on involvement
of neuronal mechanisms in decision-making. His whole talk was based around the
orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), which deals with decision-making, but he did his
experiments with rats. With these rats they were capable of measuring their
neural activity while the rats were making a decision and they also measured
their neural activity after the rats made a decision to see if they regretted
it or not. It is believed that neural signals dealing with regret are encoded
in the orbitofrontal cortex as well as in the ventral striatum when it comes to
rats performing tasks dealing with economic decisions. The experiment set up
dealt with a maze. The maze was in an octagonal shape and there were four
different reward zones included where each rat had a chance to choose whichever
reward zone they wanted. Within these reward zones there was a different type
of food, like sugar, chocolate, cherries or bananas. The rats ran around in a
counterclockwise way. Once they reached a zone, there was a sound that was set
off. This sound informed the rat the amount of time it would take in order for
the food to come out. Rats had the chance to either wait for their food, or
they could move on to another zone in hope of the time being shorter. If the
rat did choose to go to another zone, but it took the food the same amount or
more time to come out, then this is where the researchers were capable of
seeing whether the rat demonstrated regret or not. When looking at the results
from the brains neural activity, the neurons in the OFC fired when the rats
were making decisions. The OFC plays a huge role when it comes to the rat’s
present and past decision-making. The rats really liked the banana and cherry
pellets. The activity in the OFC was very high when the rat wanted the cherry
pellet but it was quite low when it considered the banana pellet. This meant
that when it came to the food, a certain neuron was very selective towards the
cherry pellet. Although there is a selective neuron for cherry, the rat was
hungry and did skip the cherry zone because the wait time was too long. So then
the rat went to the banana zone, but the time for the banana pellet exceeds the
time that the rat would of waited for the cherry pellet. It is here where the
researchers noticed that the rat looked back and had regret. When the rat
looked back, the activity within the OFC and ventral striatum was very
identical to the activity in OFC when the rat considered the cherry zone. This
proved that the rat had a sense of regret and should have stayed and waited for
the cherry pellet instead. Although this experiment was done on rats, Dr. Sweis
did mention that the OFC does play a role of regret in humans as well. In an
experiment done by Camille, it is dais that if a human were to damage their
OFC, “they do not report or anticipate negative consequences of actions while
performing gambling tasks, but only when participants were provided feedback on
what they could have won had they picked the alternative option.” Another great
example of research done with regret is in the article “Potential evolutionary
role of “sexual regret” in human survival, reproduction.”
Andrew
Galperin, who is a social psychologist professor at UCLA, led the study on
sexual regret. The article is
telling us how human emotions, like regret, have the ability to play a huge
role when it comes to survival and reproduction. They believe that when it
comes to men, they will regret if they won’t take action on a woman, but they
believe that women would be more remorseful if engaged in a one night stand
with a man. Pressures in evolution do explain a whole lot in gender differences
with sexual regret. If a man missed his chance to have intercourse with a new
partner, which can potentially bring up regret for him because of reproduction
opportunity, but for women it is a different story. When it comes to
reproduction, it is more of a time investment to the offspring and it would
bring consequences for the woman’s emotional state. There were three studies
done and each participant was asked about their sexual regret. The first study
had 200 participants and they were given a hypothetical scenario where someone “regretted
pursuing or falling to pursue an opportunity to have sex.” Then they were asked
to rate their remorse on a 1-5 scale. The second study included 395
participants and the researches handed them a list of common sexual regrets and
they asked the participants to pick which one they have personally experienced
before. The third study was just like the second study, but it had a sample
size of 24,230 people and this included gay, lesbians and bisexual
participants. What researchers found was that the top three regrets for women
were losing their virginity to the wrong person, cheating on their partner and
having sex too fast with a partner. The male’s top three regrets were being too
shy to make a move on a woman, not being sexually adventurous/active at a
younger age and not beings sexually adventurous/active when they were single.
One of the top regrets for women (17%), but lower for men (10%) was having sex
with an unattractive partner. Over 56% of women regretted having casual sex,
women showed more frequent and more intense regret towards it. When it came to
the gay, lesbian and bisexual participants, the trend was similar where women
tended to regret causal sex more than men. As Haseltion stated “Regret comes
after the fact, so it’s not protective, but it might help women avoid
potentially costly action again.”
Overall, the lecture that
was given by Dr. Sweis and the article by Science Daily do show how regret
plays a role in either a rats or human life. Rats showed regret when knowing
that after they left a zone, they now had to wait longer for another food
source. Women tended to show more regret after having casual sex with someone
else, but with regret, we have the ability to learn and understand that better
choices can be made when we are given the opportunity to try again. Regret
plays a huge role in our daily lives and it is our choice to make the most
correct decision as possible.
Citations:
Bissonette,
Gregory B., Daniel W. Bryden, and Matthew R. Roesch. "You Won't Regret
Reading This." Nature Neuroscience
17.7 (2014): 892-93. Web.
Redish, David, Steiner, A. “Behavioral and
neurophysiological correlates of regret in rat decision-making on a
neuroeconomic task.” Nature Neuroscience.
University of Texas at
Austin. "Study examines potential evolutionary role of 'sexual regret' in
human survival, reproduction." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 25 November
2013. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131125164745.htm>.
Pictures:
http://cdn1.theodysseyonline.com/files/2015/02/16/6355970775261383261569265861_regret-1.jpg
http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v17/n7/images/nn.3745-F1.jpg
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