Daiki Tanaka, Associate Professor, Koji Chimura, Associate Professor, Department of Bioinformatics, Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University, Kochi University of Technology, shows that people with stronger self-control in the face of rewards they have never experienced in the past show more active brain activity. It was clarified by the research of Professor Kiyoshi Nakahara, Specially Appointed Professor Mami Takeda, and Associate Professor Ryuta Aoki (at that time) in the Informatics Group.
According to Keio University, the research group measured the subject's brain activity with a functional MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and gave them "wait for a while, but drink a lot of juice" and "juice that you can drink immediately, but only a small amount". , Asked to choose between.
As a result, it was found that the prefrontal cortex of the brain was active reflecting future expectations, and that the more self-controlled people who chose "wait for a while, but drink a lot of juice", the more active the prefrontal cortex was. ..
The research group believes that when expecting a positive event that has never been experienced, the more active the prefrontal cortex, the more profitable it will be in the long run.
The choice between a small amount of rewards that can be obtained immediately and a large amount of rewards that need to be waited for is called an extraordinary choice in behavioral economics, and the former is regarded as impulsive and the latter as self-restraint.However, until now, studies in humans have not shown how choice preferences are formed and what changes occur in the brain when waiting for inexperienced rewards.
Paper information:[J Neurosci] Self-controlled choicearises from dynamic prefrontal signals that enable future anticipation
