Neural basis underlying the relation between boredom proneness and procrastination: The role of functional coupling between precuneus/cuneus and posterior cingulate cortex

Procrastination refers to voluntarily delaying an important task despite the fact that this decision will take a heavy toll on daily life. Previous researches have shown that boredom proneness is a robust predictor of procrastination and the default mode network (DMN) could be the neural substrate for the connection between the two variables mentioned above. However, how boredom proneness links to procrastination at the neural level remains unclear. To address this question, we adopted the voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) methods to identify the neural basis of the relation between boredom proneness and procrastination. Behavioral results indicated that boredom proneness was significantly positively correlated with procrastination. VBM results revealed that boredom proneness was negatively correlated with grey matter volumes in the precuneus/cuneus. Furthermore, the RSFC analyses showed that the functional connectivity between precuneus/cuneus and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) was positively correlated with boredom proneness. More importantly, a mediation analysis found that boredom proneness played a fully mediating role in improving the relationship between precuneus/cuneus-PCC functional connectivity and procrastination. These findings suggest that the brain functional connectivity engages in attention control may account for the association between boredom proneness and procrastination, and highlight the important role of sustaining concentration on mitigating procrastination.