Some people are capable of incredible feats of perseverance and motivation, while others give up as soon as the going looks tough – but what if a switch in the brain could be flipped, causing an individual to anticipate a challenge and have a strong motivation to overcome it.

That is the finding of recent research in the US, which has shown there is a specific region of the brain when can be stimulated to evoke a person's ‘will to persevere’.

The finding might one day lead to a device or treatment which turns even the most yellow belly to solid steel – or perhaps allow a person to continually fulfil a meaningless task.

The author of the study published in the journal Neuron says; “[a] few electrical pulses delivered to a population of brain cells in conscious human individuals gives rise to such a high level set of emotions and thoughts we associate with a human virtue such as perseverance... [which] tells us that our unique human qualities are anchored dearly in the operation of our brain cells.”

Lead author Dr Josef Parvizi, from the Stanford University Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences, conducted a study involving two patients with epilepsy with electrodes already implanted in their brains to help doctors learn about the source of their seizures.

The electrodes were situated in the anterior midcingulate cortex, a brain region that is thought to be involved in emotions, pain, and decision making.

When an electrical charge was delivered to a specific point in the cortex, both patients described feeling the expectation of an imminent challenge coupled with a determined attitude to surmount it.

The feeling was accompanied by increase in heart rate, as well as physical sensations in the chest and neck.

Neither patient experienced any of these psychological or physical effects when they thought that their brains were being stimulated but no electrical charge was delivered. The same effects did not occur with stimulation of nearby regions only 5 mm away.

“Our study pinpoints the precise anatomical coordinates of neuronal populations, and their associated network, that support complex psychological and behavioural states associated with perseverance,” Dr Parvizi explains.

The findings suggest that differences in the structure and function of this network may be linked with differences in our abilities to cope during tough situations.

“These innate differences might potentially be identified in childhood and be modified by behavioural therapy, medication, or, as suggested here, electrical stimulation,” says Dr Parvizi.