That Neuroscience Guy - Neuroscience Bites - Patience

Episode Date: June 3, 2023

In today's Neuroscience Bite, we discuss the neuroscience behind patience. 

Hi, my name is Olof Kregolsen, and I'm a neuroscientist at the University of Victoria. And in my spare time, I'm that neuroscience guy. Welcome to another neuroscience bite. This one came from a listener. And remember, you can follow me on Twitter at that neuroscience guy and just DM me with ideas. And someone just sort of said, can you just comment quickly on patients? You know, how does patients work in the brain? And I thought about a full episode on patients and we've talked about it a little bit, but the story is really simple and it's a good chance to review. So what happens if you're impatient versus patient? Well, this is a great example of the prefrontal cortex. All right.

Typically, if we mean patience, we want to wait for something to occur. All right. We don't want to just start pushing ahead, but we want to stop and wait. You know, good example. You've met somebody and you're waiting for them to call and you decide to reach out and call them as opposed to to wait all right or you know you're waiting for something to arrive from amazon and you're checking your mail three times a day and you're just sort of sort of stresses you out a little bit

well basically what's happening with impatience is that's that midbrain emotional system that's sort of charging you up a little bit and saying oh oh gosh, I want to get going. I want to make a choice to check the mail or call that person. And what's failing you or people that are more patient is that this is a classic role of the prefrontal cortex where it's going to sit there and basically say, no, just take a breath, all right, and wait. So what I'm getting at is a tug-of-war between that midbrain emotional system where it's pushing you to be impatient. And what you really need is your prefrontal cortex in charge, shutting that down. So of course, this is one of the reasons that kids are so impatient because the last thing to develop in the human brain is the prefrontal cortex. So that thing that they need to help with patients,

well, it's not working yet because it's not fully online. And, you know, if you remember me talking about this before, you know, typically between 14 and 21 is when it's fully developed earlier for females than males. Other situations for people that are impatient is basically any situation where the prefrontal cortex is impaired. And when I say impairment, I don't mean like broken. I just mean it's not working as well as it could. But situations where you're tired,

if you're overtired, if you're stressed, if you're not eating well, these are all situations where you become more impatient. And the last one I will leave you with, of course, we talked about this on the alcohol episode, but one of the things alcohol does is selectively target the prefrontal cortex and shut it down. So of course, we're more impatient if we've consumed alcohol because we're really turning off our prefrontal cortex. So there's a quick bite on the neuroscience of patients. Hope you enjoyed it. I'll see you soon for another full episode

of the podcast. I'll just give you the quick run through the website, thatneuroscienceguy.com, links to Etsy and Patreon. Like I said at the outset, follow me on Twitter at thatneuroscienceguy and DM us your ideas about the neuroscience of daily life. And of course the podcast itself. Thank you so much for listening and subscribing. My name is Olive Kregolson and I'm that neuroscience guy. I'll see you soon.