05/14/2026
The Mid-Anterior Cingulate Cortex....
..is commonly referred to as "mACC"
..is responsible for what we'd consider tenacity, willpower and persistence
..is shown to be a true muscle - with evidence suggesting that regular engagement in difficult chosen tasks is associated with higher volume of activity here
..has direct projections to the spinal cord and autonomic nervous system, a rare feature among cortical regions that blurs the boundary between feeling and physical action
..older individuals who perform exceptionally well on cognitive tests are more likely to have larger mACCs, whereas patients with neurodegenerative disorders tend to have smaller or dysfunctional mACCs
..can be grown and enhanced by performing challenging tasks that one does not wish to do
..Andrew Huberman, Ph.D., states, "The mACC is smaller in obese people; it gets bigger when they diet. It's larger in athletes, it's especially large or grows larger in people that see themselves as challenged and overcome some challenge. And in people that live a very long time, this area keeps its size."
..is showing to have some play in age-related brain disease. Specifically, when we choose apathy (a lack of motivation, goal-directed behavior) over tenacity, it changes our neuroplasticity. A fun research project for later -- "superagers" with MACCs.
Neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Huberman suggests that the aMCC can be trained through the power of will. Do you agree? Disagree? Why?