Dr Kristin Hillman and Professor David Bilkey have found that neurons in a specific region of the frontal cortex, called the anterior cingulate cortex, become active during decisions involving competitive effort.

The researchers have discovered that neurons in this region appear to store information on whether a course of action demands competition, what the intensity of that competition will be, and critically, whether or not the competition is ‘worth it’ to achieve an end reward.

Their study, which appears online in the journal Nature Neuroscience, is the first to examine how competitive behaviour is encoded by neurons in the brain.

Source: University of Otago