We’ve all been there. In
a fit of procrastination (turned desperation) you look up ways to foster
motivation or remember better everything that happens in your busy life.
However, much of the advice that you will find is generalized, and nothing new.
While the tips offered here will not be anything crazy and new, a research
article named “Switching Between 'On' and 'Off' States of Persistent
Activity in Lateral Entorhinal Layer III Neurons” by Babak Tahvildari,
erik Fransen, Angel A. Alonso, and Michael E. Hasselmo provides some explanation
as to why these tips have work.
A
section labeled “Take Your Time” is the quintessential self-help advice column.
Avoid cramming and plan your studies to have them take place over time. Unfortunately
for college students everywhere, Tahvildari et al’s article “Switching Between
'On' and 'Off' States of Persistent Activity in Lateral Entorhinal
Layer III Neurons” supports this, with a caveat. Cramming, or “quickly
stuffing facts into our brains” is akin to the short pulses (.5-1s) that did
not trigger a plateau potential. Counter-intuitively, prolonged pulses (>8s)
induced self-terminating post-stimulus spikes that quickly switched the cells
back off, leading the researchers to continue with a 4-s suprathreshold pulse. There
seems to be a sweet spot between the two that is optimal for triggering that
active state, which could also mean that both cramming and all-nighters are
poor ways to study.
The
section labeled “Sit Down and Stay Put” mentions how modern open style offices
inhibit productivity because they have many stimuli. The problem with this is
that your attention could be hooked on another excitatory input while your
actual work is unable to happen because it is of a different frequency or
length to break you out of the loop. In Tahvildari et al’s article the tests
consisted of a test stimulus, distracting stimuli, and then a match stimulus
that was a repeat of the test stimulus. If your workspace is full of these
distractors it can be like catching yourself thinking along a tangent. By
choosing a stimulus that isn’t the work that you are supposed to be doing,
voluntarily or involuntarily, it can be difficult to get yourself back on track
because the match stimulus is needed to turn those neurons back ‘off’ so that
they can become ready for the new stimulus.
The
“Incentivize Moment and Read Cues” section suggests employing cues to associate
places and things, an example being of how our smart devices can remind us of
our daily priorities. However, he also adds that this reminder can be useless “if
it is not present at the moment you need to catch a reaction.” To return this
to Tahvildari et al’s “Switching Between 'On' and 'Off' States of
Persistent Activity in Lateral Entorhinal Layer III Neurons,” this cue
could be perceived as the resisted “hyperpolarization caused by lateral
inhibition induced by distractor stimuli.” That is to say that your expertly planned
reminder to finish up grading exams can easily be forgotten if it goes off during
the height of an action scene that you are watching.
Although
Tahvildari et al did this research with in vitro rat brain slices, it provides
an interesting insight into how our own brains work. Will this knowledge put an
end to your Netflix binges of procrastination and your google searches for
inspiration? Of course not. Because who
knows, maybe that next website that you visit will provide the match stimulus
to allow you to finally finish what you started days ago.
References:
Popescu,
Adam. “Simple Ways to Be Better at Remembering.” New York Times, 19 Oct
2017.
Tahvildari,
Babak & Fransén, Erik & Alonso, Angel & Hasselmo, Michael. (2007).
Switching between “On” and “Off” states of persistent activity in lateral
entorhinal layer III neurons. Hippocampus. 17. 257-63. 10.1002/hipo.20270.
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