Think Before You Act -- A Neurocognitive Governance Model for Autonomous AI Agents

Eranga Bandara, Ross Gore, Asanga Gunaratna, Sachini Rajapakse, Isurunima Kularathna, Ravi Mukkamala, Sachin Shetty, Xueping Liang, Amin Hass, Tharaka Hewa, Abdul Rahman, Christopher K. Rhea, Anita H. Clayton, Preston Samuel, Atmaram Yarlagadda

Abstract

The rapid deployment of autonomous AI agents across enterprise, healthcare, and safety-critical environments has created a fundamental governance gap. Existing approaches, runtime guardrails, training-time alignment, and post-hoc auditing treat governance as an external constraint rather than an internalized behavioral principle, leaving agents vulnerable to unsafe and irreversible actions. We address this gap by drawing on how humans self-govern naturally: before acting, humans engage deliberat

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Cite This Resource

@article{llmsec202600197,
  title = {Think Before You Act -- A Neurocognitive Governance Model for Autonomous AI Agents},
  author = {Eranga Bandara and Ross Gore and Asanga Gunaratna and Sachini Rajapakse and Isurunima Kularathna and Ravi Mukkamala and Sachin Shetty and Xueping Liang and Amin Hass and Tharaka Hewa and Abdul Rahman and Christopher K. Rhea and Anita H. Clayton and Preston Samuel and Atmaram Yarlagadda},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.25684},
}