These results suggest that, among people whose negative emotions often lead to self-control failure, excessive reactivity of the brain’s regulatory resources may be the culprit.Ĭouched in a neural framework, self-control is thought to fail because the subcortical brain regions that promote negative affect (e.g., the amygdala) are not adequately regulated by brain regions that regulate them (e.g., the lateral prefrontal cortex Heatherton & Wagner, 2011 Wager, Davidson, Hughes, Lindquist, & Ochsner, 2008). Greater activity in the anterior insula on negatively-valenced, inhibitory trials predicted greater substance abuse one month and one year after the MRI scan among individuals high in negative urgency. Suggesting a compensatory function, inhibitory accuracy among participants high in negative urgency was associated with greater prefrontal recruitment. While experiencing negative (but not positive or neutral) emotions, participants high in negative urgency showed greater recruitment of inhibitory brain regions than controls. Using fMRI, we compared the neural activity of people high in negative urgency with controls on an emotional, inhibitory Go/No-Go task. However, we entertained an alternative hypothesis: negative emotions lead to self-control failure because they excessively tax inhibitory regions of the prefrontal cortex.
Previous theorizing suggests that an insufficient, inhibitory response from the prefrontal cortex may be the culprit behind such self-control failure. The neural underpinnings of negative urgency are not fully understood, nor is the more general phenomenon of self-control failure in response to negative emotions. Negative urgency represents the dispositional tendency to experience such self-control failure in response to negative affect. Self-control often fails when people experience negative emotions.
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