Masud Husain

@masud-husain · 24 positions · On ppll ↗

Professor of Neurology at the University of Oxford, whose research covers apathy, motivation, attention and Alzheimer's disease.

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What Masud Husain says most about

motivation 14

Generalising particular failures into 'I am bad at everything' is the route from lost motivation to clinical depression.
Motivated and apathetic people are indistinguishable when the reward is large; the whole difference between them shows up over small rewards.

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dementia 4

Keeping a social network, staying curious and having a sense of purpose protect against dementia about as much as blood pressure and exercise do.
Alzheimer's disease and dementia are not the same thing: a fifth to a third of people whose brains carry the pathology never became demented.

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ambition 2

Being told to be realistic about your ambitions is how ambitions fail; the boundaries people accept about what they can do are the ones that stop them.
Ambition does not equate with happiness: in the Harvard aging cohort it was the people who lived average lives who reported being happiest.

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energy 2

Apathy is not a quieter brain but a costlier one: apathetic people burn more energy simply deciding whether an action is worth it.
Planning a day or a week in advance works because it pays the brain's decision cost once rather than dozens of times.

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health and fitness 2

Keeping a social network, staying curious and having a sense of purpose protect against dementia about as much as blood pressure and exercise do.
A stimulant taken to sharpen an already-high performer is more likely to make them worse, because the dose-response curve is an inverted U.

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