Study on Cognitive Fatigue and Decision-Making

• A new study in the Journal of Neuroscience reveals that cognitive fatigue, a symptom of many neurological conditions, can influence decision-making by making one prefer easier tasks.

• The study involved volunteers who performed a working memory task repeatedly, with the task becoming harder as the participants felt fatigued.

• The participants were offered two choices: an easy version of the task for less money or a difficult version for more money.

• Fatigued participants chose the easy option even if it meant earning less money, whereas they opted for harder tasks for more money when they were rested.

• The study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to track brain activity during the task.

• The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and the right anterior insula were activated during the task, indicating that fatigue directly changed the value of effort, making the task seem more demanding.

• The study also found that while participants reported feeling fatigued as they performed the hard tasks repeatedly, their performance didn’t dip. This suggests that as people performed harder tasks, the fatigue made them pick easier tasks rather than compromise their performance.

• The study opens new questions about how short-term and long-term fatigue effects are related and how cognitive capacities are restored after a night of sleep.

• The study suggests that cognitive fatigue, as induced with the working memory tasks, makes participants choose even a physical task requiring less effort.

• The study sugges