Selective deficit in personal moral judgment following damage to ventromedial prefrontal cortex
Open accessAbstract
Recent fMRI evidence has detected increased medial prefrontal activation during contemplation of personal moral dilemmas compared to impersonal ones, which suggests that this cortical region plays a role in personal moral judgment. However, functional imaging results cannot definitively establish that a brain area is necessary for a particular cognitive process. This requires evidence from lesion techniques, such as studies of human patients with focal brain damage. Here, we tested 7 patients with lesions in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and 12 healthy individuals in personal moral dilemmas, impersonal moral dilemmas and non-moral dilemmas. Compared to normal controls, patients were more willing to judge personal moral violations as acceptable behaviors in personal moral dilemmas, and they did so more quickly. In contrast, their performance in impersonal and non-moral dilemmas was comparable to that of controls. These results indicate that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is necessary to oppose personal moral violations, possibly by mediating anticipatory, self-focused, emotional reactions that may exert strong influence on moral choice and behavior.
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Ventromedial patients more often than controls choose to push an innocent man to death to save five others.
“they would decide to push an innocent man to death on the tracks of a runaway trolley to save five other individuals more often than controls (Ciaramelli et al., 2007;Koenigs et al., 2007).”
From Affective Cognition and its Disruption in Mood Disorders (2011) · cites this paper as Ciaramelli et al., 2007
The RTPJ appears to be strongly connected to other regions implicated in mental state attribution and moral cognition, such as the left TPJ, precuneus, and medial prefrontal cortex.
“The RTPJ appears to be strongly connected to other regions implicated in mental state attribution (4, 13, 28–30) and moral cognition (16, 19, 31–34), such as the left TPJ, precuneus, and medial prefrontal cortex.”
From Disruption of the right temporoparietal junction with transcranial magnetic stimulation reduces the role of beliefs in moral judgments (2010) · cites this paper as [31]
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- Authors
- Ciaramelli, E., Muccioli, M., Làdavas, E., & di Pellegrino, G.
- Affiliations
- University of Bologna (IT)
- Dipartimento di Psicologia, Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy, and 2Centro Studi e Ricerche di Neuroscienze Cognitive, Cesena, Italy
- Venue
- Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2007-06-01
- Volume
- 2
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 84-92
- ISSN
- 1749-5016 (ISSN-L)
- 1749-5024
- PMC
- PMC2555449
- OpenAlex
- W2146210764
- Cited by
- 436
- References
- 62
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 24 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 19 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 38 · 2018: 23 · 2017: 25 · 2016: 30 · 2015: 28 · 2014: 31 · 2013: 32 · 2012: 38
- FWCI
- 10.85
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Archivio istituzionale della ricerca (Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Ethics in Business and Education
- Keywords
- ventromedial prefrontal cortex, ethical dilemmas, ethical decision-making
- MeSH terms
- Aged, Choice Behavior, Cognition, Decision Making, Female, Humans, Judgment, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Middle Aged, Morals, Self Concept, Tomography, X-Ray Computed, Prefrontal Cortex
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