Cited by 1,539Neural and Behavioral Psychology StudiesPsychopathy, Forensic Psychiatry, Sexual OffendingPsychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment

Impairment of social and moral behavior related to early damage in human prefrontal cortex

Anderson, Steven W., Bechara, Antoine, Damasio, Hanna, Tranel, Daniel, Damasio, Antonio R.·1999·Nature Neuroscience

Abstract

The long-term consequences of early prefrontal cortex lesions occurring before 16 months were investigated in two adults. As is the case when such damage occurs in adulthood, the two early-onset patients had severely impaired social behavior despite normal basic cognitive abilities, and showed insensitivity to future consequences of decisions, defective autonomic responses to punishment contingencies and failure to respond to behavioral interventions. Unlike adult-onset patients, however, the two patients had defective social and moral reasoning, suggesting that the acquisition of complex social conventions and moral rules had been impaired. Thus early-onset prefrontal damage resulted in a syndrome resembling psychopathy.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1038/14833

Cites

26 of 26 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Damage to MPFC regions causes disturbances in moral behavior and moral reasoning.

    “Convergent evidence from neuropsy- chological studies suggests that damage to these regions causes disturbances in moral behavior and moral reasoning (33–35).”

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Anderson, S. W., Bechara, A., Damasio, H., Tranel, D., & Damasio, A. R.
Affiliations
University of Iowa (US)
Venue
Nature Neuroscience
Published
1999-11
Volume
2
Issue
11
Pages
1032-1037
ISSN
  • 1097-6256 (ISSN-L)
  • 1546-1726
OpenAlex
W1500891748
Cited by
1,539
References
26
Citations by year
2026: 21 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 28 · 2023: 44 · 2022: 26 · 2021: 39 · 2020: 73 · 2019: 56 · 2018: 56 · 2017: 52 · 2016: 52 · 2015: 58 · 2014: 69 · 2013: 63 · 2012: 76
FWCI
19.70
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • Nature Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DigitalGeorgetown (Georgetown University Library) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • G. Harold and Leila Y. Mathers Foundation
  • National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (P01NS019632)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychopathy, Forensic Psychiatry, Sexual Offending
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
Keywords
prefrontal cortex, social behavior impairment, moral reasoning, psychopathy, social conventions, punishment sensitivity, autonomic responses, decision-making, behavioral interventions
MeSH terms
Adult, Brain Damage, Chronic, Brain Neoplasms, Female, Humans, Infant, Infant, Newborn, Male, Morals, Social Behavior, Prefrontal Cortex

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review