Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40379896›Full record

ReviewNature reviews. Neuroscience2025

Brain mechanisms underlying the inhibitory control of thought.

Michael C Anderson, Maite Crespo-Garcia, S Subbulakshmi

Abstract readReview
PubMed Publisher
In one paragraph

Review in Nature reviews. Neuroscience, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
13citing papers in PubMed, 2 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

13 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

  1. Psychotherapy and inhibitory control: Insights from fMRI research.Psychiatry and clinical neurosciences · 2026
    Pooled it
  2. Pooled it
  3. Article
  4. Article
  5. Review
  6. Review
  7. Prefrontal and Cerebellar Contributions to Semantic Memory Retrieval.Neurobiology of language (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2026
    Article
  8. Review
  9. Article
  10. Article
  11. Article
  12. Article
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Michael C AndersonMRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. michael.anderson@mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9505-9299
Maite Crespo-GarciaMRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
S SubbulakshmiDepartment of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Controlling action and thought requires the capacity to stop mental processes. Over the past two decades, evidence has grown that a domain-general inhibitory control mechanism supported by the right lateral prefrontal cortex achieves these functions. However, current views of the neural mechanisms of inhibitory control derive largely from research into the stopping of action. Whereas action stopping is a convenient empirical model, it does not invoke thought inhibition and cannot be used to identify the unique features of this process. Here, we review research that addresses how organisms stop a key process that drives thoughts: memory retrieval. This work has shown that retrieval stopping shares right dorsolateral and ventrolateral prefrontal mechanisms with action stopping, consistent with a domain-general inhibitory control mechanism, but also recruits a distinct fronto-temporal pathway that determines the success of mental control. As part of this pathway, GABAergic inhibition within the hippocampus influences the efficacy of prefrontal control over thought. These unique elements of mental control suggest that hippocampal disinhibition is a transdiagnostic factor underlying intrusive thinking, linking the fronto-temporal control pathway to preclinical models of psychiatric disorders and fear extinction. We suggest that retrieval-stopping deficits may underlie the intrusive thinking that is common across many psychiatric disorders.

Indexed as

BrainInhibition, PsychologicalNeural InhibitionPrefrontal CortexThinkingAnimalsHippocampusHumans

Identifiers

PMID40379896

What Socratic holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.