This action effectively puts these areas on alert that there is money to be won in the challenge ahead.

Whether it’s sports, poker or the high-stakes world of business, there are those who always find a way to win when there?s money on the table.

The findings by psychology researchers at Washington University in St. Louis may help to unravel the workings of a novel brain network that may explain how these ?money players? manage to keep their heads in the game.

Findings suggest that a specific brain area helps people use the prospect of success to better prepare their thoughts and actions, thus increasing odds that a reward will be won.

The study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, identified a brain region about two inches above the left eyebrow that sprang into action whenever study participants were shown a dollar sign, a predetermined cue that a correct answer on the task at hand would result in a financial reward.

Using what researchers believe are short bursts of dopamine the brain?s chemical reward system the brain region then began coordinating interactions between the brain’s cognitive control and motivation networks, apparently priming the brain for a looming ?show me the money situation.

The surprising thing we see is that motivation acts in a preparatory manner,? says Adam C. Savine, lead author of the study and a doctoral candidate in psychology at Washington University.

?This region gears up when the money cue is on.

Savine and colleague Todd S. Braver, PhD, tested 16 subjects in an experiment that required appropriate preparation for one of two possible tasks, based upon advance information provided at the same time as the money cue.

Monetary rewards were offered on trials in which the money cue appeared (which happened randomly on half the trials), provided that the subjects answered accurately and within a specified timeframe. Obtaining the reward was most likely when subjects used the advance task information most effectively.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the researchers detected a network of eight different brain regions that responded to the multitasking challenge and two that responded to both the challenge and the motivational cue (a dollar sign, the monetary reward cue for a swift, correct answer).

In particular, Savine and Braver found that the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), located in the brain approximately two inches above the left eyebrow, is a key area that both predicts a win, or successful outcome, and prepares the motivational cognitive control network to win again.

Simply flashing the dollar-sign cue sparked immediate activation in the DLPFC region and it began interacting with other cognitive control and motivational functions in the brain, effectively putting these areas on alert that there was money to be won in the challenge ahead.

In this region (left DLPFC), you can actually see the unique neural signature of the brain activity related to the reward outcome,? Savine says.

It predicts a reward outcome and it?s preparatory, in an integrative sort of way. The left DLPFC is the only region we found that seems to be primarily engaged when subjects get the motivational cue beforehand, it?s the region integrates that information with the task information and leads to the best task performance.?

The researchers actually observed increased levels of oxygenated hemoglobin in the brain blood flow in these regions.

The finding provides insight into the way people pursue goals and how motivation drives goal-oriented behavior. It also could provide clues to what might be happening with different populations of people with cognitive deficiencies in pursuing goals.

Savine and Braver sought to determine the way that motivation and cognitive control are represented in the brain. They found two brain networks ? one involved in reward processing, and one involved in the ability to flexibly shift mental goals (often referred to as ?cognitive control?) that were coactive on monetary reward trials.

A key question that still needs to be answered is exactly how these two brain networks interact with each other.

Because the brain reward network appears to center on the brain chemical dopamine, the researchers speculate that the interactions between motivation and cognitive control depend upon phasic bursts of dopamine.

They wanted to see how the brain works when motivation impacts task-switching, how it heightens the importance of a one-rewarding goal while inhibiting the importance of non-rewarding goals.

?We wanted to see what motivates us to pursue one goal in the world above all others, Savine says.

?You might think that these mechanisms would have been addressed a long time ago in psychology and neuroscience, but it?s not been until the advent of fMRI about 15-20 years ago that we?ve had the tools to address this question in humans, and any progress in this area has been very, very recent.

In this kind of test, as in the workplace, many distractions exist. In the midst of a deadline project with an eye on the prize,? the phone still rings, background noise of printers and copying machines persist, an interesting world outside the window beckons and colleagues drop in to seek advice.

A person?s ability to control his or her cognition all the things a brain takes in ? is directly linked to motivation. Time also plays a big factor. A project due in three weeks can be completed with some distraction; a project due tomorrow inhibits a person?s response to interrupting friends and colleagues and allows clearer focus on the goal.

The researchers intend to explore the left DLPFC more as a uniquely predictive measure of pursuing rewarded outcomes in motivated settings, Savine says.

?Another key research effort will seek to more directly quantify the involvement of dopamine chemical release during these tasks.?

And they may test other motivators besides money, such as social rewards, or hunger or thirst, to see if different motivators are all part of the same reward currency, engaging the same brain network that we?ve shown to be activated by monetary rewards, Savine says.

Source: Washington University

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Dan Archer

History is littered with commonly held beliefs which were disproved by a mixture of scientific development, endeavour and bravery. Until 330bc many believed that the planet was flat. Aristotle was amongst many freethinkers who suggested an alternative theory which turned out to be pretty accurate. Nowadays, not withstanding the foundation of Samuel Shenton’s “Flat Earth Society” in 1956, the spherical planetists are in the ascendancy.

In the same way many in the scientific community believed that the pressures created by flight at faster than 343 metres per second would destroy both the pilot and the plane. Then in 1947 along came Chuck Yeager and proved them all wrong by breaking the sound barrier.

So what relevance to self employment does the shape of the planet and faster than sound travel have? I have been amazed in the last 6 months by the nervousness of some prospective franchisees when it comes to starting their own business. I understand entirely that anybody considering self employment will be having a bout of caution induced nerves which feels much the same as MajGen Yeager must have experienced before his sound breaking flight.

I also respect the fact that taking the step into self employment will be as alien to some as the suggestion must have been that the seemingly flat planet that we inhabit is actually spherical. What I cannot quite comprehend are the instances in the past 6 months of prospective franchisees considering self employment and also applying for jobs. I have so far this year heard on 4 separate occasions “Thanks for your help Dan but I have decided to accept a job offer as I think it is more secure at the moment.”

Far be it for me to suggest that people could be wrong and in truth if they were considering employment alongside franchised self employment, they were probably never fully bought into working for themselves in the first place. I do however have to point out some of the practicalities of what this suggests.

If you are self employed, you are fully in control of your own destiny, you are fully responsible for the business that you are running. You can and history tells us will, do more, sell more, make more, better, faster and more efficiently than you would if you were working for somebody else. Franchised outlets are regularly found to provide better service and to be more successful and profitable than corporate owned and employee managed outlets.

If however you work for someone else you are a cog in a gearing system which has to turn at a pace governed beyond your control and with a greater dependency on the actions of others. You will have less control and will be less in a position to influence the direction of your destiny.

Now neither of these options is without risk and neither is insulated from the impact of market forces. But I cannot accept that working for someone else would give anything other than less security than a self employed position where you could stand and fall by your own actions.

So does my view make me the guy holding Aristotle’s scroll as he shares his thoughts for the first time or the guy from the scientific naysayers with a “Go Chuck” banner. Neither, I respect anybody with the drive to take a step into self employment. In uncertain times, which for sure we have at the moment, those being brave are being especially bold. They are however captains of their own destiny in a way that an employee never can be.

The world is not flat and we have surpassed Mach One flight several times over. It is only by challenging these norms that we develop. Employment should not be a default position and it certainly does not provide any more insulation from the effects of the economy than self employment does.

Dan Archer

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Jeep in today for a new set of brains. Engine Management for the unknowing May have to get a new car. Promised not to though #

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