Michael Koenigs

Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgements

The psychological and neurobiological processes underlying moral judgement have been the focus of many recent empirical studies. Of central interest is whether emotions play a causal role in moral judgement, and, in parallel, how emotion-related areas of the brain contribute to moral judgement. Here we show that six patients with focal bilateral damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), a brain region necessary for the normal generation of emotions and, in particular, social emotions, produce an abnormally ‘utilitarian’ pattern of judgements on moral dilemmas that pit compelling considerations of aggregate welfare against highly emotionally aversive behaviours (for example, having to sacrifice one person’s life to save a number of other lives). In contrast, the VMPC patients’ judgements were normal in other classes of moral dilemmas. These findings indicate that, for a selective set of moral dilemmas, the VMPC is critical for normal judgements of right and wrong. The findings support a necessary role for emotion in the generation of those judgements.

The functional neuroanatomy of depression: Distinct roles for ventromedial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

A primary aim in the neuroscientific study of depression is to identify the brain areas involved in the pathogenesis of symptoms. In this review, we describe evidence from studies employing various experimental approaches in humans (functional imaging, lesion method, and brain stimulation) that converge to implicate the ventromedial and dorsolateral sectors of prefrontal cortex as critical neural substrates for depression, albeit with distinct functional contributions. The putative roles of ventromedial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in depression are discussed in light of the results.

Irrational Economic Decision-Making after Ventromedial Prefrontal Damage: Evidence from the Ultimatum Game

Emotion regulation is often critical for adaptive decision making. Here, we investigate whether emotion regulation defects following focal prefrontal brain damage are associated with exceptionally irrational economic decision making in situations of unfair treatment. In the Ultimatum Game, two players are given one opportunity to split a sum of money. One player (the proposer) offers a portion of the money to the second player (the responder) and keeps the rest. The responder can either accept the offer (in which case both players split the money as proposed) or reject the offer (in which case both players get nothing). Relatively low Ultimatum offers are often rejected, and this “irrational” behavior has been attributed to an emotional reaction to unfair treatment. Using the lesion method, we tested the hypothesis that damage to ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), an area critical for the modulation of emotional reactions, would result in exaggerated irrational economic decisions. Subjects acted as the responder to 22 different proposers who offered various splits of

Dorsolateral Prefrontal Contributions to Human Working Memory

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Superior parietal cortex is critical for the manipulation of information in working memory.

5, keep

Reduced Prefrontal Connectivity in Psychopathy

5) to extremely unfair (give

Focal brain damage protects against post-traumatic stress disorder in combat veterans

1, keep

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: The Role of Medial Prefrontal Cortex and Amygdala:

9). The rejection rate of the VMPC group was higher than the rejection rates of the comparison groups for each of the most unfair offers (

Functional anatomy of ventromedial prefrontal cortex: implications for mood and anxiety disorders

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Distinct Regions of Prefrontal Cortex Mediate Resistance and Vulnerability to Depression

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