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5.8 - Habit Formation

from 5 - Neural Circuits

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2023

By
Claire M. Gillan
Edited by
Mary-Ellen Lynall ,
Peter B. Jones  and
Stephen M. Stahl
Mary-Ellen Lynall
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Peter B. Jones
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Stephen M. Stahl
Affiliation:
University of California, San Diego
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Summary

To understand the most sophisticated human capacities, such as analytical inquiry, social interaction or creativity, it is important to first understand the most basic. This chapter aims to introduce one of the most fundamental brain processes there is – the ability to form habits, to automate the routine and to ignore things that have become predictable. Habits are brilliant in their simplicity and the poetic irony is that we notice least these behaviours that we know the best. If you take one thing away from this chapter, let it be this: without our ability to develop habits, to automate tasks we have performed 100 times or more, our brains would lack capacity to support any of the advanced functions that we prize as humans. At every level of complex thought, habits provide the essential scaffolding. Aside from the fundamental importance of understanding habits for gaining a broader concept of how the brain processes information and arrives at decisions, habits are of extra interest to those in the field of psychiatry. As you will learn, habits play a key role in a range of compulsive disorders, including obsessive–compulsive disorder and addiction.

Type
Chapter
Information
Cambridge Textbook of Neuroscience for Psychiatrists , pp. 192 - 198
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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References

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