Journal
PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
Volume 24, Issue 11, Pages 2262-2271Publisher
SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC
DOI: 10.1177/0956797613492985
Keywords
self-regulation; self-control; depletion; reward; food; orbitofrontal cortex; fMRI
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Funding
- NHLBI NIH HHS [T32 HL007456, R21 HL114092, R21HL114092] Funding Source: Medline
- NIDA NIH HHS [R01DA022582, R01 DA022582] Funding Source: Medline
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To be successful at self-regulation, individuals must be able to resist impulses and desires. The strength model of self-regulation suggests that when self-regulatory capacity is depleted, self-control deficits result from a failure to engage top-down control mechanisms. Using functional neuroimaging, we examined changes in brain activity in response to viewing desirable foods among 31 chronic dieters, half of whom completed a task known to result in self-regulatory depletion. Compared with nondepleted dieters, depleted dieters exhibited greater food-cue-related activity in the orbitofrontal cortex, a brain area associated with coding the reward value and liking aspects of desirable foods; they also showed decreased functional connectivity between this area and the inferior frontal gyrus, a region commonly implicated in self-control. These findings suggest that self-regulatory depletion provokes self-control failure by reducing connectivity between brain regions that are involved in cognitive control and those that represent rewards, thereby decreasing the capacity to resist temptations.
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