<p>Many concepts in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) education are counterintuitive, making them challenging to learn at all ages. Behavioural and neuroimaging research has investigated the role of inhibitory control (IC) in maths and science counterintuitive reasoning, and found slower reaction times and increased prefrontal cortex activation in counterintuitive, compared to intuitive trials, and cross-sectional associations with individual differences in measures of IC. This study aimed to assess the similarity of the neural correlates of IC and maths and science counterintuitive reasoning within participants. Thirty-four young adults (18–26 years old) completed maths and science counterintuitive and intuitive reasoning problems alongside IC tasks, while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging scans. We found frontoparietal brain regions were activated in young adulthood during the counterintuitive reasoning task, as in earlier studies. Using a multi-voxel pattern similarity analysis, we found similarity in the neural correlates of counterintuitive reasoning and IC tasks predominantly in the inferior parietal lobules, which replicated findings of a study in adolescents and suggests the involvement of broader executive function processes. Additionally, higher counterintuitive reasoning performers, compared to lower performers, showed increased activation in left middle frontal gyrus and anterior insula, which overlapped with IC task activation. This partially replicates previous results and suggests that individual differences in recruitment of IC processes may support successful maths counterintuitive reasoning.</p>