Dan Randles and researchers from the University of
British Columbia researched in a first neurological study to look at
the potential of acetaminophen to inhibit the brain response
associated with making errors.
It is a well established fact that physical pain
and social rejection share a neural process that can be traced to the
same part of the brain..
Recent research has begun to show how exactly
acetaminophen inhibits pain, while behavioural studies suggest it may
also inhibit evaluative responses more generally. Randles own past
research has found that people are less reactive to uncertain
situations when under the effect of acetaminophen.
In the research, two groups of 30 were given a
target-detection task called the Go or No Go. Participants were asked
to hit a Go button every time the letter F flashed on a screen but
refrain from hitting the button if an E flashed on the screen. "The
trick is you're supposed to move very quickly capturing all the GOs,
but hold back when you see a No Go," says Randles.
The activity of brain of person was mapped through
electroencephalogram (EEG) during the experiment. The researchers
were looking for a particular wave called Error Related Negativity
(ERN) and Error Related Positivity (Pe). Essentially what happens is
that when people are hooked up to an EEG and make an error in the
task there is a robust increase in ERN and Pe.
One group, which was given 1,000 mg of
acetaminophen -- the equivalent of a normal maximum dose -- showed a
smaller Pe when making mistakes than those who didn't receive a dose,
suggesting that acetaminophen inhibits our conscious awareness of the
error.
Cognitive control is an important neurological
function because people are constantly doing cognitive tasks that
flow automatically like reading, walking or talking. These tasks
require very little cognitive control because they are well mapped
out neurological processes, notes Randles.
"Sometimes you need to interrupt your normal
processes or they'll lead to a mistake, like when you're talking to a
friend while crossing the street, you should still be ready to react
to an erratic driver," explains Randles.
"The task we designed is meant to capture
that since most of the stimuli were Go, so you end up getting into a
routine of automatically hitting the Go button. When you see a No Go,
that requires cognitive control because you need to interrupt the
process."
The study was double blind, so neither the
researcher running the study nor the participant knew whether they
had been given a placebo or acetaminophen.
An unexpected and surprise finding that Randles
plans to explore more closely is that those who received an
acetaminophen dose appeared to miss more of the Go stimuli than they
should have. He plans on expanding on the error detection aspect of
the research to see whether acetaminophen is possibly causing people
to "mind wander" and become distracted.
"An obvious question is if people aren't
detecting these errors, are they also making errors more often when
taking acetaminophen? This is the first study to address this
question, so we need more work and ideally with tasks more closely
related to normal daily behaviour."
The research is published in the current edition
of the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.
The news published in the Sciencedaily can be accessed here.
