Intentional inhibition: how the "veto-area" exerts control.

ABSTRACT: One important aspect of self-control is refraining voluntarily from already planned behavior, by a final intervention before commitment to action. Despite its crucial role in human existence, and clear social implications, this aspect of self-control has proved hard to study experimentally. One recent study used a perceptual timing paradigm to identify specific activations in the dorsal fronto-median cortex (dFMC) associated with voluntary inhibition of action (Brass and Haggard 2007: J Neurosci 27:9141-9145). Here, we extend this work in two important new directions. First, we developed a more naturalistic task that gives participants a strong reason to inhibit or to execute actions, and therefore involves self-control in the sense of voluntary inhibition of prepotent impulsive responses.

SUBMITTER: Kuhn S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6870995 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature