The Simple Neuroscience of Impulse Control
By: Natalie Wilcox and Brandon Slade - Founder of Untapped Learning
I have an electric stove. It has a coil that glows when it gets hot, which is a bit different than the gas stove I grew up using. With a gas stove, there is a lot of flame that shows you hey, that’s hot. An electric stove doesn’t give off the same warning signs. So why haven’t I tried touching it?
No one is born with impulse control. Impulse control is something you learn fairly quickly after spending time around a toddler. So how do we develop the restraint to not lick door handles? Our brains are programmed to quickly pick up on things that are considered “good” or “bad,” based on the reactions of people around us or physical reactions. It’s fairly easy to learn not to touch a pan on a stove (even if it is electric). However, impulse control skills, such as not switching tabs from homework to YouTube, are a bit more challenging to learn.
So let’s chat a bit about the brain. Once again, we will discuss dopamine being the reward neurotransmitter. In this case, it is important in the innervation of the prefrontal cortex from the ventral tegmental area. The ventral tegmental area is dopamine dominant and transmits the neurotransmitter made in the substantia nigra. The ventral tegmental neurons are designed to respond to reward and will send a burst of dopamine initially to unpredicted rewards. However, they will start firing in response to the cues that predict rewards, not the rewards themselves. Think about teaching a dog to sit. At first, you will give them a treat every time they sit. After a while, the dog will respond to the “sit” command even without a treat.
This is why, as mentors, you need to encourage any progress in students’ self-regulation or progress on goal directed behavior, because over time, they will associate the reward with the work that they are doing, and eventually be more motivated to do the work themselves.
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