All parts of the brain › Functions › Impulse control

What part of the brain controls impulses?

Holding back an action is the best-measured form of impulse control. [1][2][3]

The 3D brain needs JavaScript. The list of parts still says what each one does for impulse control.

Lit: whole parts; region borders not drawn.

Slice

All 5 parts are lit together. Drag to turn, pinch or scroll to zoom, tap a part on the brain or a name in the list to focus it; .

In the stop-signal task, suppressing a movement already started depends on the right inferior frontal gyrus and on the pre-supplementary motor area of the superior frontal gyrus, which are thought to act on the subthalamic nucleus, a small brake in the basal ganglia. The prefrontal cortex and the caudate nucleus are active whenever a task demands inhibitory control, and the putamen tracks how far a response has built up. [1][2][3]

The pre-supplementary motor area is a region on the superior frontal gyrus, not a separate shape. The 3D model has no shape for it, so the whole superior frontal gyrus is lit; the region’s exact border is not drawn.

Impulse control: 5 parts lit

Inferior frontal gyrus, superior frontal gyrus, caudate nucleus, putamen and prefrontal cortex. Tap one to see where it is and what it does.

The parts and their roles

Suppressing a hand movement already started depends critically on the right inferior frontal cortex, and it was more active in fast stoppers than slow ones; the activity is right-sided, and the middle and inferior frontal gyri are both linked with response inhibition. [2][1] Where is the inferior frontal gyrus?
Holds the pre-supplementary motor area: magnetic pulses over it during the stop-signal task made stopping worse, lengthening the stop-signal reaction time, but did not affect switching between tasks. [3][4] Where is the superior frontal gyrus?
Part of the striatum: with the prefrontal cortex and the subthalamic nucleus it is one of the parts known to regulate inhibitory control, and it is active in tasks that demand it. [1] Where is the caudate nucleus?
Its activity in the stop-signal task is thought to show how far a response has built up in the pathway from the frontal cortex through the striatum and pallidum, the circuit a stop signal has to halt. [2] Where is the putamen?
Its dorsolateral part and the right ventral prefrontal cortex are highly active in inhibitory control, and imaging ties self-control to dorsolateral prefrontal activity; the orbitofrontal cortex weighs immediate against delayed rewards. [1][5] Where is the prefrontal cortex?

Named areas on the lit gyri

The pre-supplementary motor area, on the : The pre-SMA: the front part of the supplementary motor area on the inner face of the superior frontal gyrus, with few direct links to the spinal cord or primary motor cortex but many to the prefrontal cortex. [4][3]

How they work together

The stop-signal task measures it: press a button for each arrow, but on some trials a tone after a short delay means stop. The delay is tuned so you stop about half the time, and the stop-signal reaction time, the median go time minus the average delay, was about 187 to 189 ms in young adults. [2]
The brake is thought to be the subthalamic nucleus, which may suppress output from the thalamus to the cortex by exciting the inner globus pallidus; a fast hyperdirect route from the frontal cortex straight to it is a stronger candidate for stopping than the slower route through the striatum and pallidum. [2][1]
Other tasks test the same skill in different ways: the Stroop task, go/no-go, the Simon and flanker tasks, antisaccades (looking away from a target) and delay-of-gratification tasks such as Mischel’s marshmallow test. [1][5]
Honest limit: these are networks seen in imaging and brain-stimulation studies, not single centres. Activation alone cannot prove a region is needed, the brain area labelled subthalamic nucleus in the scans also took in the substantia nigra and red nucleus, and the pre-SMA and subthalamic nucleus are not separate shapes in this atlas, so the whole superior frontal gyrus is lit and the subthalamic nucleus is only linked. [2][6]

Self-control is part of choosing well: the orbitofrontal cortex weighs an immediate reward against a later, larger one, the trade-off at the heart of the decision-making page. [5] What part of the brain controls decision-making?

Sources

Facts describe anatomy and normal function only. A part lit here takes part in impulse control; it does not do it alone, and it does other jobs too. The 3D model is the adult male BodyParts3D brain (credits and licence); on it the brainstem includes the midbrain, pons and medulla, so lighting the brainstem lights all three.