Very often, emotion regulation is interlinked with impulse control. The VLPFC region of the brain (Ventral=lower, Lateral=side, prefrontal=at the front, cortex=outer grey area) acts as common CEO for both the emotion regulation and the impulse control domains of function through its connections with the middle and lower parts of the brain. So if 
VLPFC’s function is altered, it may result in both emotion dysregulation and impulse control. It is one of the explanations of how mood and impulsivity are interconnected. Brain does not know the diagnosis, but man made labels are chosen to approximate what occurs in the brain and manifests on the outside. In this scenario, attention may or may not be affected alongside impulse control.
Mani,
How coupled is technology and science integrated in this domain? Are we any closer to ‘digitize’ thoughts, emotions and ‘visualize’ them?
~Vijay
Thanks. If I understand correctly, your question is how do we use technology to get this to precise level of decoding what we think, feel and see. The field uses functional magnetic neuroimaging (fMRI) to capture the blood flow changes associated with use of any region of the brain pertaining to the task at hand. Real time EGG is being integrated with fMRI to improve the time resolution to be even more precise. So the issues one needs to know are:
1. Most of the scientific data published is “group data,” not ready for individual use as our analytic tools are still time consuming and not ready for clinical use. That said, it is applied to begin to understand and educate ourselves.
2. Merging real time EEG and fMRI data at technical level to get the time resolution to be even more precise is not as easy and being currently attempted at our University.
3. The data is as good as the task the scientist designs for the study that probes the brain’s thinking and feeling, while seeing- in the MRI scanner!
Hope that helps.