How does mental fatigue begin in the brain?
Scientific American · Cody Cottier ·
New findings could help explain why cognitive exhaustion feels so crummy
It’s been a grueling year for Hongmei Xia. A Ph.D. student in cognitive neuroscience at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany, she’s spent long days wrestling with an enduring scientific mystery: What happens in the brain to cause mental fatigue?
The problem was personal for Xia—she often felt drained after hours of research. But for decades, scientists didn’t understand the neural underpinnings of cognitive exhaustion. Now she and her colleagues have discovered a likely molecular culprit: glutamate, a common neurotransmitter.
They found that glutamate builds up in parts of the brain when we perform challenging mental tasks. As the molecules accumulate, they seem to tank our motivation—even when we stand to gain big by persevering.
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