Science DailyApril 3, 2013
Why is it so hard for some people to resist the least little temptation, while others seem to possess incredible patience, passing up immediate gratification for a greater long-term good?
The answer, suggests a new brain imaging study from Washington University in St. Louis, lies in how effective people are at feeling good right now about all the future benefits that may come from passing up a smaller immediate reward. Researchers found that activity in two regions of the brain distinguished impulsive and patient people.
“Activity in one part of the brain, the anterior prefrontal cortex , seems to show whether you’re getting pleasure from thinking about the future reward you are about to receive,” explains study co-author Todd Braver, PhD, professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences. “People can relate to this idea that when you know something good is coming, just that waiting can feel pleasurable.”
The study, which was published in the first issue of the Journal of Neuroscience this year, was designed to examine what happens in the brain as people wait for a reward, especially whether people characterized as “impulsive” would show different brain responses than those considered “patient.”
The lead author of the study was Koji Jimura, then a postdoctoral researcher in Braver’s Cognitive Control and Psychopathology Laboratory, and now a research associate professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, in Japan.
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