That Neuroscience Guy - The Neuroscience of Motivation

Episode Date: September 12, 2023

We all have things that motivate us. Whether its a coach or teacher encouraging you to do better or an inner drive to get things done, we need motivation to complete goals. But how does our brain respond to motivation? In today's episode of That Neuroscience Guy, we discuss the neuroscience behind motivation. 

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 the podcast. So recently I found out that I have to get ankle replacement surgery. My right ankle's pretty messed up after a long life of basketball and hiking and any number of other things. And I've been sort of trying to tough it out, but the surgeons finally said, look, we're going to have to replace your ankle. Now, the part that got me with this is I do a reasonable job of staying in shape. But, you, but as I get a bit older, I've put on a few extra pounds. The surgeon said for me to have optimal chance of recovery, I had to lose 32 pounds and get into the best shape I've probably been in since I played basketball in university. I was just in shock, but I'm motivated to do this.

I want to replace my ankle. I would like to play some basketball again, go for the occasional run. So I'm motivated. And it got me thinking about, you know, what's going on in my brain? Because I was literally sitting there pondering this and what it meant to me. So on today's podcast, the neuroscience of motivation. So what the surgeon did to me telling me I had to lose the 32 pounds and if I didn't, he wouldn't operate. That's what we call a form of extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation

is when the thing that motivates you is coming from an external source. So in this case, it's the surgeon telling me I have to lose the weight. And if I don't, I don't get the operation. You know, you could argue that winning a gold medal at the Olympics is a form of extrinsic motivation, you know, working extra hard to get a grade because you believe that grade is going to, you know, open a door for you. You know, a bonus at work. These are all forms of extrinsic motivation. It's basically any time you're motivated by something that's outside of you. So it's not something that you currently have, but it's something outside or external to you that you truly want. Now, outside or external to you that you truly want. Now, what drives extrinsic motivation?

Well, within the brain, it's kind of the usual suspects, right? The prefrontal cortex, as we know, plays a role in executive function, right? It's the thing that allows us to set goals and keep ourselves on task. So at the highest level, the prefrontal cortex is controlling extrinsic motivation. It's basically saying that, you know, this is something that you want to do. You've decided this and it's going to keep you on task. And what's interesting is that research that looks at people with damage to the prefrontal cortex, well, it's harder to motivate them externally or with extremely extrinsic motivation and they have harder staying on task when chasing these goals because the prefrontal cortex is sort of losing sight of the prize if you will funnily enough this is also true for us as we develop

teenagers might not be as motivated extrinsically and And if they are, it's more possible that they might wander, right? So they have an extrinsic goal. They think it's what they really want to do. And then a couple of weeks later, they change and they have a new extrinsic goal. Having a teenage son myself, I've seen this in action. So the prefrontal cortex is what helps us set the goal and what helps us maintain that goal and stay extrinsically motivated. There's also a fear element to this in a sense. In my case, there's a fear of not getting the operation, which I really need.

And that, of course, activates the amygdala in our emotional system. So it's the usual interplay between the prefrontal cortex and the emotional system. In this case, the prefrontal cortex helping us stay motivated and stay on task. And the amygdala providing potentially a fear element. You know, if I don't do this, what does that mean? There's one other piece to this, which you have to consider, which is when we've talked about decision making, we have tied it to value, which you have to consider, which is when we've talked about decision-making, we have tied it to value, right? So I had a choice to get the surgery or not get the surgery. And you

could think of your own example. And both of these choices have value. And if you think back to the discussions we've had about decision-making, typically we choose the option with the highest value. So in my case, it was a higher value to get the surgery than to not get the surgery. Now, of course, values can change over time, right? So for instance, something that motivated us to extrinsically had very high value, but we might reassess that because our life situation has changed. And as that value comes down and another value goes up, all of a sudden we have a new thing that's motivating us extrinsically.

Now, I won't lie. I was motivated for different reasons too. I've mentioned this on the podcast before, but you know, depression and I are old friends. I've had some struggles with it over the years. So I knew that if I lost the weight, independent of the ankle, I would be healthier. And if I'm healthier, my brain's going to function better. And that's a form of intrinsic motivation because that's something that comes from within me. I'm not worried about people's perceptions of me or anything else, but I'm intrinsically motivated. So intrinsic motivation comes from an internal source. It's us chasing after something because we really want to do it. Now, I use that gold medal as an example, but you could also argue some people are intrinsically motivated to win gold medals.

For whatever reason, over the course of their life, they've built up this strong internal desire to do this. And this could be true of anything that I mentioned before. All right. It's just something that you have learned to want, or you have decided you want internally and not due to some sort of external factor, which would be extrinsic motivation. Now, the mechanisms here within the brain are basically the same. The prefrontal cortex is going to keep us on task. You know, we've intrinsically decided we have a goal and it's going to keep us on task while we chase that goal. And the fear element probably not as much, so the amygdala is possibly less of a motivator here, but the value argument is still true as well. When we're

intrinsically motivated, we're chasing something for our own reasons and we perceive the value of that choice to be high, which is what's motivating us to chase after it. But of course, if that value changes, then our intrinsic motivation might change as well. Now, the one factor that's different here, and it's present in extrinsic motivation, but we've talked about dopamine a lot as well. And we know, if you remember, that dopamine is tied to reward. So when something is rewarding, there's small releases of dopamine within the brain, and these are found to strengthen or reinforce what we're doing. So with intrinsic motivation,

research has shown that the dopamine system seems to be more engaged because typically when people find things to be intrinsically motivating, they're more rewarding for them. So they're doing them for themselves and that generally makes people happier and they're more likely to want to keep doing it, hence the release of dopamine. Whereas when we're extrinsically motivated, that dopaminergic system might not be playing as much and is not playing as much because we're not internally motivated. We're driven by this outside thing that we may or may not find rewarding. And funnily enough, I see this a lot as a university professor where you've got students that are

chasing grades and they don't really care about the course but they just know that they need the grade to go on to what's next in life and that's a form of extrinsic motivation and I want to stick with this example because I find it fascinating but every once in a while in a class you find a student that's intrinsically motivated they really like like the subject, right? They're really into it. And it turns out that they tend to perform better in the course. And if you think back through your own life, I'll challenge you with this right now. When you found something interesting, you were intrinsically motivated, you probably did better at it and you probably remembered more about it. And I find this true, of course, as the students that are intrinsically motivated tend to come back to me years later and they'll say, hey, Dr. K, you know, I still remember that class and I loved it and I remember this, that,

and the other thing. Whereas the students that were there simply to get the A plus generally tend not to remember as much and they don't tend to perform as well. And this research supports this massively, right? There's a massive amount of research into extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. And generally, the consensus is that when people are intrinsically motivated, there's enhanced learning. So people learn more quickly and they learn more. Enhanced overall performance. You can think of this cognitively, all right, within the brain, perceptually, or

within the motor or sport domain. People that are intrinsically motivated tend to be more creative. It's associated with optimal development, all right? So your progression through something is better. And finally, psychological wellness. People that are motivated intrinsically tend to be happier. They tend to suffer less depression. They're less anxious. They're less stressed. So you could put this together with a sports example, right? I've mentioned this in the past, but I had a friend growing up who was extrinsically motivated to be good at basketball. growing up who was extrinsically motivated to be good at basketball. And it was because he was told he should be and goals were set for him.

And he was a heck of a basketball player. But that extrinsic motivation, you know, when he finally got a chance to stop playing the sport, he just stopped completely because he wasn't intrinsically motivated. He was doing it for other reasons. Whereas I have another friend who was intrinsically motivated. He was doing it for other reasons. Whereas I have another friend who was intrinsically motivated to play basketball. He just loved the game. And because of that, he stuck with it longer and he ended up performing better in the long run.

And interestingly enough, in the sports model, you know, we had this era in sports where we were taking sports very seriously at a very young age for kids you know i remember watching basketball practices for kids in elementary school where coaches were screaming and they were just doing some very complicated stuff that really wasn't appropriate and there's this whole cool line of research called deliberate play but i'm going to save that for the bite and talk about it more. But it turns out with deliberate play, people tend to be more intrinsically motivated.

Now, how does one stay motivated? It's harder for extrinsic, but it can be done. It's easier for intrinsic, but it's possibly harder to build. But I can give you some sort of general tips, if you will. Well, one, review why you some sort of general tips, if you will. One, review why you're motivated for what you really want to do. What is your reasoning? If it is intrinsic in nature, you're going to find it much easier to achieve. But if you're doing it for extrinsic reasons, you're probably going to find it harder to stay motivated. find it harder to stay motivated. If you want to stay on target and stay motivated, review the reasons that you are motivated to do something. Okay, this will help reinforce what you choose and it'll help you stay on track. And of course, as ever, optimal brain health, sleep, get a lot of sleep, diet, eat healthy and exercise. If you do those three things, you know from listening to me say it over and over again,

you're going to be in a better state for optimal brain health. And if you have optimal brain health, you're more likely to stay on track and stay motivated. Well, there you go. There's a bit on the neuroscience of motivation. Just a reminder about the new format. Matt and I have sort of jinked things up a bit so that we can focus on the podcast tied to the academic semesters. So for us here in Canada, that's September to the beginning of December. Then we'll take a little break for the holidays. And then we'll be back in January till March,

take a little break for April to recover from the academic year. And then we'll run from May to the end of July and take a break in August to get ready for the academic year. So it means that this is the start of season six and season five was a bit short. I'll be honest and say that the season numbering is a bit random. When I did season one, you know, over two years ago now, I just picked 21 episodes. I have no idea why. So we're going to keep pushing out content. We're just going to align it with our academic lives a bit better than it has been in

the past. And of course, the bump. Remember, check out the website, thatneuroscienceguy.com. There's a link to our Etsy store, which as ever has no new merch. I'm really going to find some time one of these days to put something up. But for those of you that have bought a couple of t-shirts, every little bit helps. There's links to Patreon. Our Patreon sponsorship is growing, which is awesome. Remember on Patreon, you basically just find the podcast

and you can pledge, you know, a dollar a week, a dollar a month, $5 a month. And it's amazing because Matt does this for free. He's a graduate student he doesn't get paid i just give him all the money because it takes hours out of his day i'm doing it just because i want to do it so no money comes to me so thanks to those of you that have supported us on patreon um there's x now formerly twitter at that neuro side guy one of these days i'll get a profile up on threads but if you're still on twitter slash x

you can just dm me with ideas a lot of the ideas we have for season six here have been suggested by you the listener and last of all thank you so much for listening we're well through 500 000 downloads so please subscribe and i'm glad that a lot of people are at least listening to the podcast and i hope you like it my name name's Olof Kregolsen and I'm that neuroscience guy. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you soon for another neuroscience bite.