Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2015 Summer;27(3):193-8.
doi: 10.1176/appi.neuropsych.14060126. Epub 2015 May 11.

Areas of Brain Damage Underlying Increased Reports of Behavioral Disinhibition

Kristine M Knutson  1 , Olga Dal Monte  1 , Selene Schintu  1 , Eric M Wassermann  1 , Vanessa Raymont  1 , Jordan Grafman  1 , Frank Krueger  1
Affiliations

Areas of Brain Damage Underlying Increased Reports of Behavioral Disinhibition

Kristine M Knutson et al. J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2015 Summer.

Abstract

Disinhibition, the inability to inhibit inappropriate behavior, is seen in frontal-temporal degeneration, Alzheimer's disease, and stroke. Behavioral disinhibition leads to social and emotional impairments, including impulsive behavior and disregard for social conventions. The authors investigated the effects of lesions on behavioral disinhibition measured by the Neuropsychiatric Inventory in 177 veterans with traumatic brain injuries. The authors performed voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping using MEDx. Damage in the frontal and temporal lobes, gyrus rectus, and insula was associated with greater behavioral disinhibition, providing further evidence of the frontal lobe's involvement in behavioral inhibition and suggesting that these regions are necessary to inhibit improper behavior.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Lesion density map.
Axial slices. Color indicates the number of pTBI veterans’ lesions overlapping at each voxel, where warmer colors indicate more veterans had lesions at those locations. The greatest overlap was found in prefrontal regions with 28 veterans having lesions in these areas (shown in red). Slice numbers are displayed below each slice. The left is on the viewer’s right.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.. Voxel-based lesion-symptom map for disinhibition.
Axial slices. Color indicates brain regions with a significant association between lesion location and NPI disinhibition (one-tailed t-test, q(FDR) =.05, minimum cluster size = 10 voxels), with yellow indicating the greatest impairment. The VLSM analysis was limited to those voxels where at least four pTBI veterans had damage. Slice numbers are displayed below each slice. The left is on the viewer’s right.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Krueger CE, Laluz V, Rosen HJ, et al. : Double dissociation in the anatomy of socioemotional disinhibition and executive functioning in dementia. Neuropsychology 2011; 25:249–259 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Harnishfeger KK: The development of cognitive inhibition, in Interference and Inhibition in Cognition, edited by Dempster FN, Brainerd CJ. New York, NY, Academic Press, 1995, pp 175–204
    1. Cohen JR, Lieberman MD: The common neural basis of exerting self-control in multiple domains, in Self Control in Society, Mind, and Brain, edited by Hassin R, Ochsner K and Trope Y. New York, NY, Oxford Scholarship, 2010, pp 141–160
    1. Muraven M, Shmueli D, Burkley E: Conserving self-control strength. J Pers Soc Psychol 2006; 91:524–537 - PubMed
    1. Dimitrov M, Nakic M, Elpern-Waxman, et al. : Inhibitory attentional control in patients with frontal lobe damage. Brain Cogn 2003; 52:258–270 - PMC - PubMed

Publication types