Our habits have a great importance in the configuration of our self. This is a phrase that most of the great thinkers of history agree with at agreement , and that ordinary people can also subscribe to. From the moment we wake up until we go to bed, and even when we face new situations, our decisions are influenced by the actions we have taken throughout our lives. The classics say that habits are our "second nature," such is their ingrained nature.

However, current neuroscience understands habit in the opposite way to certain philosophical currents, such as the Aristotelian-Thomistic one. For the former, it is an uncontrolled routine that, once started, is carried to completion without our being able to stop it. For the latter, it is a disposition that, if correctly acquired, enables us to improve our conduct and expand the ends to which we direct it. There is no doubt that human beings can acquire negative habits that automate their behavior, as in the case of addictions. But it is no less true that well-learned skills, such as playing the piano, are positive habits that open up new possibilities, even enabling creativity.

The group Mind-Brain aims to enrich the notion of habit in current neuroscience, both theoretically and empirically. The goal is to achieve a better understanding of this phenomenon, as well as to know the brain changes associated with the acquisition of habits, both positive and negative.