THE ‘STATE’ OF YOUR BRAIN COULD BE USED TO PREDICT YOUR FUTURE

The human brain consumes 20% of the body’s energy, even when it’s idle or at rest. And when it’s faced with a cognitive task, the increased use in energy is quite small. According to a recently published paper in the journal Organizational Research Methods, that use of energy is essentially the brain preparing itself for some hard work. When this ‘state’ of the brain is measured, it can be used to predict what a person might want to do in the immediate future, even before options present themselves. The paper argues that this knowledge can be used to understand how and when people might choose to indulge in high-risk behaviours, like gambling, for example.