The Role of the Basal Ganglia in Mental Laziness and Procrastination

Abstract

Why can’t we get ourselves to do what we know is good for us, such as writing the paper we need to complete by the end of the week? The short answer is: the part of our brain which makes plans (the Cortex) is not the part of our brain which decides which of them we enact (the Basal Ganglia). If we want to be able to control our own actions, we need to understand how the two influence each other. In this paper, I will describe a hypothesis for how the Basal Ganglia (BG) determines whether the plans proposed by the Cortex will be acted upon. I will describe the metric used by the BG to evaluate plans (Expected Emotional Outcome), how EEO is linked only to past emotional experiences (not to rational nor conscious considerations), and I will show how concepts such as willpower, procrastination and choices are confabulations for the outcome of the evaluations made by the BG. I will also describe how low EEO associated with mental manipulation tasks (such as mental rotations or mental permutations) could be responsible for many behaviors which are grouped under the label of “mental laziness”. Understanding the above is critical to become able to effectively influence our own behavior, so that we can change our own habits and, with them, our own future