Next time you get the midnight munchies, and desperately want to exert some self-control, try summoning up some moral support from your dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

It seems that those of us who can resolutely pass up that nocturnal raid on the icebox possess what most of us do not, a pronounced difference in the brain.

Enter the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

Leave it to science to make those of us who are willpower-challenged feel even guiltier than we already do, but that’s exactly what researchers at the California Institute of Technology have achieved.

They studied 19 volunteers with food on their minds and discovered significant differences in brain scan activity between those who had self-control and those who did not.

Apparently, the researchers say, while everyone uses the same area of the brain to make value-laden decisions about temptations like food, in some people with willpower, a second region—the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex—allows for more abstract reasoning, like weighing health benefits against the desire to eat something scrumptious.

So, put down that chocolate cake and give it a second thought.