A plethora of laboratory-based and cross-sectional studies has linked cognitive-behavioral measures to between-subject differences in drinking behavior. Over the last decades, our understanding of the cognitive, motivational, and neural processes involved in addictive behavior has increased enormously. Brain activations are discussed in relation to episodic future thinking and mentalizing as potential mechanisms mediating real-life self-control. Applying multivariate pattern analysis to the same clusters revealed that individual patterns of activity predicted the probability of real-life self-control.

Decisions in line with long-term consequences were associated with increased activity in bilateral angular gyrus and precuneus, regions involved in different forms of perspective taking, such as imagining one’s own future and the perspective of others. To investigate neural correlates of decisions in line with long-term consequences and to assess the potential of brain decoding methods for the individual prediction of real-life self-control, we combined functional magnetic resonance imaging during preference decision making with ecological momentary assessment of daily self-control in a large community sample (N = 266). While recent research revealed a prominent role of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex in the computation of an integrative value signal, the contribution and relevance of other brain regions for real-life self-control remains unclear.

Despite its relevance for health and education, the neurocognitive mechanism of real-life self-control is largely unknown.

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