Giving up feels like failure, but new research suggests that it's really just part of a necessary balancing act in the brain
Few things crush the spirit like the sensation of giving up. We all know the feeling – when you thought a goal was in reach, then realize you just don’t have enough of whatever it takes to get there.
Neuroscience already has a good handle on what happens when we’re excited about pursuing a “reward.” Whether it’s something tangible like money, food or sex, or more abstract like love or power, a similar chemical pattern plays out in the brain. The neurotransmitter dopamine floods neural pathways in what’s often called the brain’s “reward center.” This is the biochemical dynamic that drives us forward, and it’s no exaggeration to say that it’s central to why we pursue anything at all.
While this was going on, the researchers were tracking the rodents’ neural activity and found that nocicpetin neurons were most active when the mice gave up. Interestingly, these neurons are located near the brain’s ventral tegmental area , the hub of activity in the reward center, and the proximity provides easy access to tap the breaks.
The reason for this interplay between reward-surge and reward-suppression comes down to the brain’s tendency toward stability and balance, aka. The brains of mammals have built-in mechanisms to keep reward seeking from going too far in either direction. In the wild, continuing to engage in risky reward-seeking behavior when success is out of reach could result in injury or death, so we’ve likely inherited this chemical balancing act as an evolved survival mechanism.
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