Cognitive neuroscience of self-regulation failure 15

✍ Scribed by Todd F. Heathertona and Dylan D. Wagnera

• Book ID: 116915993
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 430 KB
• Volume: 15
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1364-6613
• DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2010.12.005

✦ Synopsis

Self-regulatory failure is a core feature of many social and mental health problems. Self-regulation can be undermined by failures to transcend overwhelming temptations, negative moods and resource depletion, and when minor lapses in self-control snowball into self-regulatory collapse. Cognitive neuroscience research suggests that successful self-regulation is dependent on top-down control from the prefrontal cortex over subcortical regions involved in reward and emotion. We highlight recent neuroimaging research on self-regulatory failure, the findings of which support a balance model of self-regulation whereby self-regulatory failure occurs whenever the balance is tipped in favor of subcortical areas, either due to particularly strong impulses or when prefrontal function itself is impaired. Such a model is consistent with recent findings in the cognitive neuroscience of addictive behavior, emotion regulation and decision-making.