| Sumario: | A study was conducted to test two theories of how people regulate their thoughts. Data were obtained from tests involving 17 right-handed, native English speakers who were scanned while undertaking blocks of tasks. During suppress blocks, subjects attempted to avoid thinking about the target object of a white bear for 120 seconds; during free thought blocks, they were free to think about any topic, including the bear; and these blocks were separated by periods of a manual-response task. Findings indicated support for both cognitive and neural models of control. Findings revealed that dorsolateral prefrontal cortex demonstrated sustained increases in brain activation during suppression blocks; bilateral anterior cingulate cortex demonstrated transient increases associated with occurrences of unwanted thoughts. Findings are discussed in detail.
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