Anterior Cingulate Cortex
Abstract
Daily judgment, decision making, emotional cues, and action control are all done in the Anterior Cingulate Cortex(ACC) in the human brain. This system helps people to do daily tasks, while helps them to make the right decisions and inhibits bad behaviors. People with Bulimia Nervosa(BN) often have the symptom of the inability to stop eating large amounts of food, and this binge-eating period can be related to the ACC deficit of error control.
Key words: judgment, decision making, emotional, control, Anterior Cingulate Cortex, inhibits, Bulimia Nervosa
Anterior Cingulate Cortex Defined
The Anterior Cingulate Cortex, often abbreviated as ACC, is located in the brain. It connected the limbic system and prefrontal cortex. The limbic system functions as an emotional and behavioral response component in the brain. This system reacts to behaviors that are essential for human survival, like fight or flight response, reproduction, and feeding (The Limbic System 2019).
The prefrontal cortex is the region where planning and cognitive actions happen. Usually, the prefrontal cortex evokes the actions that resonate with the internal goals people established. It defines good and bad, saint and evil, similar or different(SoP et al., 2021 ). The interlinked two regions by the ACC enhance the importance of ACC in human behaviors both physically and psychologically. The unregulated neural circuit in ACC can be an important component for the impulsive behaviors that have been done by people with Bulimia Nervosa.
ACC Functions
The Anterior Cingulate Cortex is considered influential. It involves people's daily life, such as decision making, judgment, emotional assessment, and learnings caused by emotions. Researchers often call ACC an “effective” area in the brain. ACC has been divided into subgenual (sACC) and pregenual (pACC) regions, each containing different tasks and functions. Anatomical studies also cut the dorsal portion of ACC into the middle cingulate cortex(MCC) with anterior (aMCC) and posterior(pMCC) regions (Stevens et al., 2011).
Emotional-wise, ACC simply responds to emotional activities. sACC response to sadness and pACC response to happiness. Pain-related to MCC.
ACC also can be activated by rewards. sACC reacts to expected rewards, whereas fear and action selections are related to pMCC. MCC general is more cognitive, which means it is smarter, considering conflicts and choices.
Amygdala, which is covered by the cortex, is important for the self-regulation process. Both enhancement and suppression happen under the cortex. Many self-regulatory actions are involving the activation of ACC.
ACC and Bulimia
People with Bulimia Nervosa(BN) always make bad decisions about food. The impulsive, unstoppable action of large amounts of food intake with long periods of fasting are all caused by the impairment of ACC.
One research studied self-regulatory control in women with BN in the neural circuits. As a result shows, patients usually failed to engage the right neural circuit as healthy individuals. People with BN activate ACC more when making errors, while healthy individuals engage ACC more when making correct decisions. The failed self-regulatory process with the wrong activation of ACC caused the subjects in this setting (women with BN) to make bad decisions. (Marsh et al. n.d.).
The emotional response that happens in the ACC can also be a cause for large food intake among people with BN, together with the inability to stop impulsive actions. While ACC can function as an error warning system, the failed action of control is usually caused by emotional cues or long-term psychological management.
The human brain needs stimulation to function. As for Bulimia Nervosa, the constant cues for binge eating that is caused by excessive food in today’s society(Peñas-Lledí, Loeb, Martin, & Fan, 2007) can be harmful.
Conclusion
The Anterior Cingulate Cortex acts as the main component in people’s daily life. The behavioral control and emotional effect make the role of ACC a pivot. However, as research shows, the impairment of ACC can cause loss of control in impulsive actions, and cause people to make bad decisions such as the binge-eating process for people with Bulimia Nervosa. Future study is needed to find the exact relationship between BN and ACC, and a definite neural route of the people with BN is needed for a deeper understanding.
Resources
Figure 4: Effects OF paclitaxel on glutamate Receptors TRANSCRIPT levels in the anterior cingulate CORTEX (ACC). (n.d.). doi:10.7717/peerj.1350/fig-4
The limbic system. (2019, January 24). Retrieved March 12, 2021, from https://qbi.uq.edu.au/brain/brain-anatomy/limbic-system
Marsh R;Steinglass JE;Gerber AJ;Graziano O'Leary K;Wang Z;Murphy D;Walsh BT;PetersonBS;. (n.d.). Deficient activity in the neural systems that mediate self-regulatory control in bulimia nervosa. Retrieved March 12, 2021, from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19124688/
Peñas-Lledí, E., Loeb, K., Martin, L., & Fan, J. (2007). Anterior cingulate activity in BULIMIA nervosa: A fMRI case study. Eating and Weight Disorders - Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity, 12(4). doi:10.1007/bf03327599
So P., Usamah, Dahlitz, M., Kelly, M., . . . Markyangfa. (2021, February 27). Prefrontal cortex.Retrieved March 12, 2021, from https://www.thescienceofpsychotherapy.com/prefrontal-cortex
Stevens, F., Hurley, R., Taber, K., Hayman, L., Dr., Bouwens, J. (2011, April 01). Anterior cingulate Cortex: Unique role in cognition and emotion. Retrieved March 12, 2021, from https://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/jnp.23.2.jnp121