blog

It’s the start of a new decade, and if you’re anything like us you’ve already started and failed a juice cleanse, lost that brand-new bullet journal you bought and fallen victim to a late-night burger during Veganuary. New Year’s resolutions are difficult and you’re not alone – research from the University of Scranton has found that less than 10% of people actually stick to their New Year’s resolutions. But what if a scientific approach is an answer to making sure you don’t fall into this statistic ever again?

Research from MIT found that habits are made up of three sections: trigger, behaviour and reward. The researchers reached this conclusion from their study on rats completing a maze. Initially, they found that when travelling through the maze, the rat’s brain was overwhelmed with the stimulation of analysing all the possible routes. However, when they added chocolate to the end of the maze, the neuronal activity within the rat’s brain then became completely focused on getting to the end of the maze to get the reward.  

With the rat’s new-found motivation, a new neuronal pattern quickly became apparent. To support the rat’s efficient journey to the chocolate, the neuronal activity would peak at the beginning and again at the end but would drop throughout.  This enabled the rat to spend its time fully focused on getting its reward in the quickest and most efficient way, whilst disregarding any stimuli that weren’t related to the end goal.

The researchers then theorised that the reward was the key to forming a successful habit. To test this theory, they took away the chocolate and just as they suspected the rat’s brain returned to a chaotic and over-stimulated state.

So, this year, instead of beating yourself up when your resolutions fall by the wayside, set yourself up for success using scientifically backed methods. Be smart, set attainable goals and of course make sure you provide yourself with a reward for all your hard work and dedication. That’s a scientific recipe for success. 

---

If you like our recommendations, why not consider checking out F1000Prime? F1000Prime is our literature recommendation service, which has a peer-nominated global Faculty of more than 8,000 of the world’s leading biomedical scientists and clinicians. The Faculty select those articles which they think are particularly interesting and important and write recommendations explaining their selection. From the numerical ratings awarded, we have created a unique system for quantifying the importance of individual articles.

“The results of this study suggest that smoking reduction interventions with nicotine replacement therapy may be more effective than brief advice to quit for improving abstinence rates and reducing cigarette smoking and should be considered as an alternative in smokers who are ambivalent about quitting or who have not established a firm quit date.”

Walter Ling & Larissa Mooney , University of California, Los Angeles, USA

“They demonstrate that aerobic exercise improves several aspects of muscular metabolism but exacerbates the loss of lean mass while resistance exercise maintains or increases muscle mass. A combination of resistance and aerobic exercise during diet-induced weight loss had the best overall impact on muscle mass and quality.”

Katja Lamia, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, USA

“It is possible that similar benefits to those seen with the Mediterranean diet might be obtained by following a vegetarian diet. This British study in 7th Day Adventists showed a 32% lower risk among vegetarians compared to a usual (unhealthy) diet. Overall a vegetarian diet reduced ischemic heart disease by 19% and cardiovascular disease by 13%.”

J David Spence, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada

---

Current Top 3 recommendations

Rankings are generated using the article recommended in F1000Prime during the preceding 30 days.

“It is increasingly clear that scientific publishing is at the edge of a new age. In this essay, the authors provide a clear, robust and comprehensive state-of-the-art overview of the functioning of for-profit science publishing. It convincingly emphasizes the limits (and craziness) of this system and calls for fundamental changes in our ways of publishing, evaluating and disseminating research to the entire community. This is a must-read for all researchers!”

Joël Meunier, University of Tours, Tours, France

“This is a ground-breaking paper that calls into question the specificity of a number of drugs in various stages of clinical development. Using CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing, the authors show that all of the drugs that they test have equivalent efficacy when the gene of interest is knocked out, but that the drugs are not effective when the gene of interest is knocked down by RNAi. This is an eye-opener for anyone in the cancer biology or cell biology fields. It is a must read!”

Claire Walczak, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA

“In general, by showing directly and with solid pieces of evidence, this research provided a new understanding of how ecDNA connects with modern cancer genomics and epigenetics.”

Yi Lu, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, USA

---

Hidden Jewels

Hidden Jewels rankings only include articles published in specialist journals, recommended in F1000Prime during the preceding 30 days.

“Symbionts? Parasites? Gatekeepers? Bouncers? It’s high time to rethink the optimal marketplace for sharing our discoveries with the world. This essay offers one vision for a path forward that is worth discussing, especially with our trainees since it’s their hard work hanging in the balance.”

Adam Frost, University of California, San Francisco, USA

“Lin and colleagues used CRISPR-Cas9 mutagenesis to test the in vitro efficacy of cancer drugs undergoing clinical trials and found that the compounds kill cells by way of unintended off-target effects.”

Levon Khachigian, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

“The results obtained by the authors show the potential of a low-energy cryoelectron microscope and pave the way for technological improvements, this time probably carried out by the manufacturers, which will definitively democratize the use of this powerful structural technique.”

Jose Valpuesta, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid, Spain

Visit F1000Prime to find out more and to sign-up for a free 30-day trial.