Habits

Habits are behaviors wired so deep in our brains that we do them without hesitation.  Recently MIT neuroscientists has discovered a small region of the brain's prefrontal cortex is responsible for the moment-by-moment control. The prefrontal cortex is where most of your thoughts and planning occur. Professor Ann Graybiel, a member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT said " that the value of a habit is one you don't have to think about it." If you dont have to think about doing that habit, it leaves space in your mind so you can think about other important things. Habits often become so serious that we keep doing them even though we do not gain anything. 
The MIT team preformed an experiment with rats. They let the rats run a T-Maze. When the rats got closer to the turning point the heard a noise telling them to go either right or left. When the chose correctly they was rewarded. After a while the stopped rewarding the rats and found out that the rats still ran the right way. This proves that their behavior was habitual. Using optogenetics, a technique that allows researchers to inhibit specific cells with light, the MIT scientists turned off IL cortex activity for a few seconds. As the rats neared the point in the maze where they had to go left or right, the rats forgot all about the previous turns and went a different way. This says that turning off the IL cortex switches the rats' brains from an automatic  mode to a mode that is more engaged in the goal.
This topic was interesting to me because everyone, including myself, have at least one habit that needs to be broken.


-Travis Farmer-

Which trout fish is smarter?

Taylor Noblett

Bio 101

Gazdik

Which trout has a better memory?

A fish’s personality can tell a lot. From how it learns and responds to threats or predators. There are two kinds of trout that Brown looked at. One was a shy trout and the other was a bold trout. The shy trout are a little more cautious, have a good memory, and can remember a predator’s sense better than the bold trout. The shy trout has a better chance of mating and defending where it lives because it keeps the sense of its predators. So when a predator comes around it knows it and can escape while the bold trout are forgetful and have a lesser chance to mate and survive because it does not remember the predators smell. A trout needs to be able to retain a predators smell wherever it goes because a predator can show up anywhere at any time.

Brown and his team set up a tank with removable Plexiglas and tested which fish would escape the test tank faster. He found that the bold trout would move quickly and use risky behavior. While the shy fish was more cautious and took its time to avoid being risky. Brown and his team also had the trout remember the smell of pumpkin seed. They tested to see which trout would remember the smell after 24 hours and after eight days. By the end of their research they found that the personality of the trout helped them remember the smell. Both the bold and shy trout remembered the smell after 24 hours, but when it came to the eight days the shy trout came out on top.  

            I feel that personalities can tell a lot especially about trout. Some animals are smart while some are not. This test of the two trout shows that even though they are the same fish they do not retain information the same. This test was a good way to determine which trout would remember and which one would not, but I feel as though they should have done more than just this test to test their memory. I chose this article because I love animals, and I have been trout fishing a few times. It was interesting to learn about one of the animals I hunt and see how their minds work. The article is relevant to society because some people, especially animal science people are interested in animals and fish, and some people, like me, like to learn about animals they hunt. This article also helps show society that not all trout have bad memories like the bold trout.