Study explores how preschoolers' brains develop self-control
Jul 11, 2022
Washington [US], July 11 : According to new research, as the brain regions linked to self-control mature, pre-schoolers improve their ability to stop themselves from doing something.
The findings of the study were published in the journal JNeurosci.
A component of self-control called inhibitory control doesn't develop until around age 4. In adolescence and adulthood, inhibitory control stems from a group of brain regions called the cognitive control network, but how the ability develops in young children is not well known.
Berger et al. examined the maturation of brain regions in three and four-year-old children using MRI and compared it with their inhibitory control abilities. To test neutral inhibitory control, the researchers told the children to follow instructions from one sock puppet but ignore the instructions of another. To test emotional inhibitory control, the researchers placed candy in front of the children and told them if they did not eat it now, they would get more later.
The four-year-olds performed better at both tasks than the three-year-olds. Children with better inhibitory control had larger brain regions and stronger white matter connections in the cognitive control network.
Each type of inhibitory control was tied to the maturation of distinct and separate regions in the network, indicating separate neural bases for different aspects of the development of inhibitory control.
