Boredom Effect On The Brain

A large portion of the population have recurrently experienced boredom. The purpose of this study was to determine whether boredom has an effect on the brain and which wave lengths are affected. Once more information is provided on this topic, it will be easier to understand the effects of boredom on the brain, as well as what activities and attention spans are ideal to maximize activity and prevent boredom.
The effects that boredom has on the brain were first studied by Katamyama and Natsume (2012). The purpose of their study was to look at the relationship between physiological aspects of boredom and efficient learning; in hopes that they could change the educational system to determine optimal timing for rest or when learning material must
Based on previous research, it was suggested that boredom occurs when there is no self-sustained attention. The purpose of Mathiak et al. (2013) study was to mediate whether goal-directed behaviour is due to boredom and affect. The study included 13 male participants who were regular video game players. The study incorporated a video game “Tactical Ops: Assault on Terror” to demonstrate if boredom leads to goal-directed behaviour, a positive and negative affect schedule (PANAS) and a three-ton magnetic resonance (MR) scanner that used a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) software (Mathiak et al., 2013). There was a 30-minute familiarization period where participants became familiar with controllers and joysticks. The participants then completed five fMRI sessions while free playing in 12-minute sessions. The participants completed a PANAS before and after entering the scanner (Mathiak et al., 2013). The results showed that goal-directed behaviour occurred in most tasks (non-goal directed behaviour was begin in a safe zone or no task for more than 10 seconds). It was confirmed that positive affect and negative affect are separate constructs stemming from their own neural pathways (Mathiak et al., 2013). The processing of positive affect was shown to be negatively related to the amygdala and insula. Whereas the processing of negative affect was shown to be related to an increase in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), which controls emotional experience. An increase in negative affect may influence boredom (Mathiak et al.,