Abstract
The question of how we can voluntarily control our behaviour has an enduring fascination for researchers from different disciplines such as philosophy and psychology. At the same time, this question is also related to issues of social relevance such as responsibility and self-control. While research on willed action was long obsessed with the problem of free will, important research in this domain has shifted away from this problem and rather investigates the functional and neural mechanisms underlying intentional action. Recent brain imaging research showed that intentional behaviour can be distinguished from externally guided behaviour on a functional neuroanatomical level. Furthermore, it was proposed that intentional action can be decomposed into different subcomponents. Here we provide an overview of the functional neuroanatomy of intentional action. Furthermore, we discuss recent research of our group on intentional stopping and intentional nonaction.
About the authors
Research professor at Ghent University (Belgium) funded by the Special Research Fund (BOF). After studying psychology in Berlin, he did his PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research in Munich. He then worked as a research scientist and Heisenberg fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig. In 2006 he obtained a faculty position in the Department of Experimental Psychology at Ghent University. Marcel Brass is interested in the functional and neural bases of cognitive and motor control. In particular, he has done research on the relation of perception and action in imitation, on the role of the prefrontal cortex in cognitive control and on the neural basis of intentional action.
Obtained a Diploma in Psychology at the University of Potsdam, worked as a doctoral student at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig and at the University of Ghent (Belgium) and was funded by the German National Academic Foundation. Since 2009 she is a Postdoctoral fellow funded by the Flamish Research Foundation (FWO) at Ghent University currently working at University College London (UK).
© 2017 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
