Another study showed that students self-imposed costly deadlines to avoid procrastination (Ariely and Wertenbroch, 2002). That people do this suggests they are sometimes aware of potential temptations, which makes (costly) precommitment decisions more valuable in the long run relative to unconstrained decisions, which are vulnerable to (more costly) self-control failures. Even though precommitment is widely used as a self-control strategy outside of the laboratory, and has been the subject of extensive theoretical consideration (Elster, 2000), compared to willpower Ku-0059436 order it has received far less attention from the empirical behavioral sciences

(Fujita, 2011), and the neural mechanisms of precommitment remain unknown. In the current study, we developed a behavioral method to directly test the effectiveness of precommitment relative to willpower. We used this measure in conjunction with fMRI to investigate the neural mechanisms of precommitment and its relationship to other varieties of self-control. Previous studies of the neural basis of self-control have focused primarily on willpower. These studies have consistently implicated the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), and posterior parietal cortex (PPC) in the effortful inhibition of impulses during self-controlled decision making (McClure et al., 2004,

McClure et al., 2007, Hare et al., 2009, Figner et al., 2010, Kober et al., 2010, Essex et al., 2012 and Luo et al., 2012). These findings converge with those of studies employing measures selleck products of the ability to inhibit prepotent motor responses, which also implicate the DLPFC and IFG (Aron et al., 2004, Chikazoe et al., 2007, Simmonds et al., 2008 and Cohen et al., 2012). In line with these studies, we expected to find increased activation in DLPFC, IFG, and PPC when subjects deployed willpower to actively resist temptations. Meanwhile, ADAMTS5 the neural basis of self-control by precommitment remains unexplored. Precommitment is nonnormative, in the sense that a rational decision maker with time-consistent preferences should

never restrict his choice set. But precommitment is adaptive when willpower failures are expected. Thus, an optimal precommitment strategy should require information about the likelihood of willpower failures. One computationally plausible neural mechanism is a hierarchical model of self-control in which an anatomically distinct network monitors the integrity of willpower processes and implements precommitment decisions by controlling activity in those same regions. The lateral frontopolar cortex (LFPC) is a strong candidate for serving this role. A recently proposed framework of executive decision making places frontopolar cortex at the top of a cognitive control hierarchy, enabling goal pursuit by orchestrating diverging action plans represented in caudal and lateral prefrontal regions (Burgess et al.