Our Competitive Behavior Comes From the Frontal Cortex?
Written by Anisha Chikkareddy
Edited by Christine Yee
February 9th, 2023
Edited by Christine Yee
February 9th, 2023
Research
Competitive behavior has always driven humanity - it has driven us to better ourselves and achieve the impossible, but it has also created class divides and power imbalances. Scientists have consistently tried to pinpoint exactly what makes us competitive and the associated inner workings within the brain – and knowing how will have vast implications for society and humanity. A group of researchers in the Department of Neurosurgery at Massachusetts General Hospital (Harvard) decided to study competitive behavior in a group of mice in order to find out how exactly the brain deals with competition.
Researchers designed an experiment to examine brain signal patterns in the anterior cingulate. The anterior cingulate, located in the frontal lobe has long been thought to be responsible for impulse-control, decision-making, and empathy. 98 male mice between the ages of 2 and 5 months were initially socialized to roughly establish social connections. Abnormally aggressive mice were removed from the groups. The mice were then placed in groups of seven to complete a group of socially-fraught competitive tasks, such as foraging. To measure the brain activity in the mice, the researchers implanted wireless single neuronal recorders within the mice’s heads and recorded input from individual neurons for the most accurate information. What they found was incredibly interesting.
First, they observed that the mice had social rankings correlating to the competitive tasks. Mice who did well and were more competitive had higher social rankings. Next, they looked for the corresponding brain signals and determined that neurons in the anterior cingulate were active during the competitive tasks. Thus, they found that group behavior was encoded with richly detailed information, allowing them to make decisions with the results of the competitive behavior tasks. With their models created from the single-cell recordings, they were able to identify a link between the frontal cortex and competition. The researchers were also able to use neuromodulation - neuron manipulation - to test their theories, and concluded that cingulate neurons work to drive these competitive interactions.
This experiment has wide ramifications for our understanding of social dynamics in relation to the brain. A better understanding of brain activity in regards to social context may not only be beneficial for future research about neurocognitive disorders, it can also allow researchers to counterintuitively look into the past to better understand history’s social dynamics. As it is one of the last frontiers to conquer, further understanding of the brain, such as the findings provided by this research, contribute to large strides in the field of neuroscience.