March 19, 2020Thinking is, well, hard. Why else do we put off studying for tests, procrastinate doing work, or offload splitting the bill at the restaurant onto our friend? Because mental grunt work requires real, concentrated effort. But how does your brain make the decision whether to put in that cognitive work in, or just slack off instead? A might have the answer.The choice of whether to partake in some mental heavy-lifting comes down to the neurotransmitter dopamine, this new research suggests. When you weigh up the benefits versus the costs of putting in the cognitive effort, dopamine...…March 19, 2020Thinking is, well, hard. Why else do we put off studying for tests, procrastinate doing work, or offload splitting the bill at the restaurant onto our friend? Because mental grunt work requires real, concentrated effort. But how does your brain make the decision whether to put in that cognitive work in, or just slack off instead? A might have the answer.The choice of whether to partake in some mental heavy-lifting comes down to the neurotransmitter dopamine, this new research suggests. When you weigh up the benefits versus the costs of putting in the cognitive effort, dopamine...WW…