Link Between Mental Fatigue and Aggressive Behavior

Mental fatigue impairs self-control, causing aggression; EEG shows brain in "local sleep" when the person is awake, linking it to poor decision making.

Highlights:

Mental fatigue reduces cooperation and increases aggression
EEG scans reveal sleep-like brain activity even while awake
Mental exhaustion affects decision-making and self-control

Old theory on ego depletion is brought back providing new insights which suggests that extreme mental exhaustion degrades specific areas of the brain that is involved in self control and decision making which leads to more aggressive behavior in the individuals. This study is Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) ().

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Mental fatigue can make you aggressive! #mentalhealth #brainfatigue’

Ego Depletion Theory

The concept of Ego depletion theory was brought in the 2000s. This theory states that certain areas of the brain are degraded because of diminution of willpower due to exhaustion of self control. So the individuals show less empathy towards others, altruistic quality reduced and become more aggressive.

People even argued if this theory existed and no neurological research is identified until now.

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Mental Fatigue and "Local Sleep"

This recent study researched into the neurological concept of the ego depletion theory based on behavior of the individuals. The main concept is “local sleep” where in the brain the specific areas show sleep like signals when the individual is actually awake.

These signals are identified by the ‘delta waves’ readings from EEG which were especially prominent in the individuals with mental exhaustion. The researchers identified that this local sleep manifests like that of the effect found in ego depletion theory.

The research divided participants into 2 groups, where group 1 is given 1 hour of cognitive tasks and group 2 with tasks that don't involve any mental exhaustion. Later both the groups were asked to play the hawk and dove game in which they had to choose between cooperative or aggressive motives to play the game.

The researchers did a neuroscientific test by doing EEG readings while they played the game. They focused specifically on the frontal cortex area of the brain which is associated with self control and decision making.

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Mental Exhaustion Impacts Behavior

Reduced Cooperation:

Group 1 individuals were less cooperative in the game where their rates dropped from 86% to 41%.

Increased Aggression:

Group 1 showed very aggressive behavior like from the ego depletion study.

Neurological Changes:

EEG readings revealed that the presence of delta waves in the awake group 1 individuals, where group 2 had no such delta activity.

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Implications of Mental Fatigue on Decision-Making

This study had found that this mental exhaustion with indicative sleep activity in the frontal cortex of the brain will have poor decision making mentality.

Reference:

Prolonged exertion of self-control causes increased sleep-like frontal brain activity and changes in aggressivity and punishment - (https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2404213121)

Source-Medindia