WWe all know people with very different levels of motivation. Some will do their best in any endeavor. Others simply didn't bother to put in the effort. We can think of them as lazy people who are happier sitting on the couch than planning their latest project. What's behind this option? Most of us would probably attribute it to a combination of temperament, circumstances, upbringing, or even values.
But research in neuroscience and patients with brain diseases is challenging these assumptions, revealing the brain mechanisms that underlie motivation. When these systems stop functioning, people who were once highly motivated can become pathologically apathetic. Where once they might have been curious, highly engaged, and productive—at work, socially, and creatively—they may now suddenly seem the opposite.
For example, in my clinic, I saw a young man named David, who was a high-ranking person in his firm, but suddenly lost interest in his work, as well as in the people around him. He used to be a productive and outgoing person who always seemed to take the lead at work and in his social circle, but now David did very little and didn't seem to care. According to him, “it was simply impossible to touch him.” He was eventually fired from his job, but he reacted to this with complete indifference. He didn't even bother to register for unemployment benefits. Seeing that he was unable to pay rent, David's friends offered him a room in their house. They soon regretted it. He did nothing all day, waiting for his comrades to come home and prepare food for him. His doctor tried giving him an antidepressant, but it had no effect.
However, David was not depressed. In fact, he was quite happy. As we looked deeper into his case, we discovered that the cause was actually two tiny strokes, one on each side of his brain. They were located in the basal ganglia, nuclei that are critical for motivated behavior. Animal and human studies have shown that the basal ganglia connects our needs and desires with actions.
When the basal ganglia are dysfunctional, people do not initiate actions, even though they might do so if prompted. David, for example, could take out the trash or clean the house if asked. But left to his own devices, he did nothing. Studies of people who develop apathy have shown that many simply do not find sufficient reward for their actions. The cost of the effort does not seem to be worth the potential benefit.
In some patients, drugs that stimulate the dopamine system in the brain can restore motivation. Dopamine plays a key role in the brain's reward system. But while neuroscientists previously thought it was a chemical associated with pleasure, recent research suggests it works by stimulating desire—encouraging people to seek out outcomes they find rewarding. David was successfully treated in this way: his motivation levels rose again after taking a drug that stimulates dopamine receptors in the brain. Thanks to this, he was able to get a new job, become independent and even find a partner, which he would never have done in his apathetic state.
Lessons from patients like David can be applied to healthy people experiencing apathy. At the University of Oxford, we scanned the brains of students with varying levels of motivation, from the extremely motivated to the extremely apathetic. We found significant differences in what their brains looked like. This in itself is not surprising. There is natural variation in all the biological systems that make us who we are, facilitated by differences in our genetics and environment. Interestingly, however, we saw that brain regions involved in motivation worked more intensely in more apathetic students when we asked them to make a choice about whether a particular course of action was worth the effort.
Why might this be so? We know that almost everyone is willing to work for great reward. Apathetic people are consistently found to be reluctant to exert effort when the reward seems small, unlike their more motivated counterparts. In our study, we asked people to decide whether to perform a short action—squeezing a handle with varying amounts of force—in exchange for a small monetary reward, represented on a screen in the form of apples. Some options were obvious: “one apple for maximum effort” (not worth it) or “15 apples for moderate effort” (worth it). But there were also less clear proposals, for example, “six apples for 80% of the effort.” Motivated people made a decision quickly. Apathetic people slowed down, hesitating much longer on borderline cases. Their brains had to work harder to make a decision, and overthinking is an aversive experience that we try to avoid if we can.
Thus, deciding whether something is worth the effort seems to burden apathetic people more, meaning that they avoid making a decision altogether. When faced with the choice to actually do something, they tend to simply say no.
What does this mean for the supposedly lazy among us or their friends and loved ones who might welcome a change in attitude? It's likely that blaming and ranting—as if apathy were a moral choice—won't work. Instead, researchers focus on a reluctance to even think about how beneficial an activity might be.
One practical way to get around this is to make a plan for the day or week ahead. This provides a structured daily routine that reduces the need to constantly think about whether each action is worth the effort. You make a choice in advance so that each of you does not lie in wait for you at the moment. Ideally, some of these activities should have personal meaning and lead to feelings of satisfaction or pleasure. This can help increase the value of participating, making the reward larger, which in turn makes it easier to say yes next time.
Additionally, several studies have shown that body movement can have a positive effect on apathy. Aerobic exercise three times a week for 40 to 60 minutes, dance classes, or even brisk walking can improve motivation, possibly by affecting the brain's dopamine system. External cues, such as smartphone alarms or visual reminders (such as placing sneakers by the door to encourage you to go to the gym or go for a run), can also be effective as prompts for action.
The ultimate goal of these kinds of interventions is to work with the brain, using what we have discovered about the causes of apathy—partly through understanding unusual cases like David's. The key to changing daily behavior is to make judging costs (effort) and benefits (rewards) into habits that don't feel too much like hard work. Even for the most apathetic among us, this offers hope of turning a knee-jerk “no” into the ability to think about saying “yes.”
Masood Hussain is Professor of Neuroscience and Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Oxford and author of Our brain, ourselves (Canongate).
Further reading
Your Neuroscience: How Every Brain is Unique and How to Understand Yours, Chantel Prat (Dutton, £26.99)
Behavior: Human Biology at Our Best and Worst Robert Sapolsky (Vintage, £12.99)
Dopamine Brain: Break Free from Bad Habits and Learn to Balance Pleasure and Purpose Anastasia Chronis (Vermilion, £16.99)
