Common Prefrontal Regions Activate During Self-Control of Craving, Emotion, and Motor Impulses in Smokers

It has been posited that self-regulation of behaviors, emotions, and temptations may rely on a common resource. Recent reviews have suggested that this common resource may include the inferior frontal cortex. However, to our knowledge, no single functional neuroimaging study has investigated this hypothesis. We obtained functional MRI scans of 25 abstinent, treatment-seeking cigarette smokers as they completed motor, affective, and craving self-control tasks before smoking-cessation treatment. We identified two regions in the left inferior frontal cortex and a region in the presupplementary motor area that were commonly activated in all three tasks. Furthermore, psychophysiological-interaction analyses suggested that the inferior frontal cortex may involve dissociable pathways in each self-control domain. Specifically, the inferior frontal cortex showed negative functional connectivity with large portions of the thalamus and precentral gyrus during motor stopping, with the insula and other portions of the thalamus during craving regulation, and, potentially, with a small limbic region during emotion regulation. We discuss implications for understanding self-control mechanisms.