You know when you get to the end of a set at NET, and you feel the urge to give up and drop the weight? Some groundbreaking new research is starting to explain what's going on biologically in your brain during that experience.
According to a 2019 study published in Cell, giving up is a hardwired response, and once it gets activated, there is not much we can do about it. Let's take a closer look!
Our central nervous system is mainly made up of neurons and glia cells. Glia comes from the word "glue" in Latin. In the study, the scientists observed that when fish are swimming but don't seem to be getting anywhere-they're not achieving their goal-they give up and stop. Leading up to that, glia cells in the brain called "astrocytes" get activated. And just before that, there is a spike in the activation of noradrenergic neurons, whose main neurotransmitter is norepinephrine.
Why is this important? According to Wikipedia, "The general function of norepinephrine is to mobilize the brain and body for action. Norepinephrine release is lowest during sleep, rises during wakefulness, and reaches much higher levels during situations of stress or danger, in the so-called fight-or-flight response."
Let's connect it back to NET: As we workout at a slow and controlled speed, keeping good form, our levels of norepinephrine rise. The higher the intensity, the exponentially more norepinephrine we release. When we are approaching failure, we can clearly feel that spike. For many clients, it's an "Oh my God" experience (sometimes they use different words...).
Once norepinephrine reaches a certain level, the astrocytes get activated and stop any voluntary muscular contraction. When that happens, we have no choice but to stop!
But here's another key finding: When the scientists disabled those glia cells, the fish never gave up; they kept swimming. The good news is we can hack this "giving up" response in a major way by using another powerful neurotransmitter: dopamine.