Motivationally significant self-control: Enhanced action withholding involves the right inferior frontal junction

Abstract

In everyday life, people use self-control to withhold actions. This ability is particularly important when the consequences of action withholding have an impact on the individualʼs wellbeing. Despite its importance, it is unclear as to how the neural nodes implicated in action withholding contribute to this realworld type of self-control. By modifying an action withholding paradigm, the go/no-go task, we examined how the brain exerts self-control during a scenario in which the implications of withholding an action are meaningful and motivationally significant. A successfully withheld response contributed to long-term monetary rewards, whereas failure to withhold a response incurred an immedi..