Serotonin Modulates Striatal Responses to Fairness and Retaliation in Humans
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Humans are willing to incur personal costs to punish others who violate social norms. Such “costly punishment” is an important force for sustaining human cooperation, but the causal neurobiological determinants of punishment decisions remain unclear. Using a combination of behavioral, pharmacological, and neuroimaging techniques, we show that manipulating the serotonin system in humans alters costly punishment decisions by modulating responses to fairness and retaliation in the striatum. Following dietary depletion of the serotonin precursor tryptophan, participants were more likely to punish those who treated them unfairly, and were slower to accept fair exchanges. Neuroimaging data revealed activations in the ventral and dorsal striatum that were associated with fairness and punishment, respectively. Depletion simultaneously reduced ventral striatal responses to fairness and increased dorsal striatal responses during punishment, an effect that predicted its influence on punishment behavior. Finally, we provide behavioral evidence that serotonin modulates specific retaliation, rather than general norm enforcement: depleted participants were more likely to punish unfair behavior directed toward themselves, but not unfair behavior directed toward others. Our findings demonstrate that serotonin modulates social value processing in the striatum, producing context-dependent effects on social behavior.
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Increased dorsal striatum activity is associated with a decision to punish a partner who has acted unfairly, even when we must incur a cost to punish the partner.
“Increased dorsal striatum activity is associated with a decision to punish a partner who has acted unfairly, even when we must incur a cost to punish the partner 96, 97.”
From The social brain and reward: Social information processing in the human striatum (2014) · cites this paper as [97]
The striatum displays signals related to making a decision to punish someone for acting unfairly.
“The striatum displays signals that are related to making a decision to punish someone for acting unfairly 96, 97, as well as related to observing a punishment meted out to someone who has acted unfairly 98.”
From The social brain and reward: Social information processing in the human striatum (2014) · cites this paper as [97]
Serotonin appears to play an important role in regulating striatal responses that influence punishment decisions.
“Indeed, decisions to punish unfairness at a personal cost are associated with impulsivity 99, and serotonin appears to play an important role in regulating striatal responses that influence punishment decisions 97.”
From The social brain and reward: Social information processing in the human striatum (2014) · cites this paper as [97]
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- Authors
- Crockett, M. J., Apergis-Schoute, A., Herrmann, B., Lieberman, M. D., Müller, U., Robbins, T. W., & Clark, L.
- Affiliations
- University of Zurich (CH)
- University of Cambridge (GB)
- European Commission (BE)
- University of California, Los Angeles (US)
- Corresponding author
- Crockett, Molly J.
- ORCID
- Venue
- The Journal of Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Society for Neuroscience
- Published
- 2013-02-20
- Volume
- 33
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- 3505-3513
- ISSN
- 0270-6474 (ISSN-L)
- 1529-2401
- PMC
- PMC3593678
- OpenAlex
- W2024532043
- Cited by
- 134
- References
- 63
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 14 · 2017: 11 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 16 · 2014: 16 · 2013: 9
- FWCI
- 45.75
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Joint Research Centre (European Commission) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Wellcome Trust (092217, 093875)
- University of Cambridge
- Medical Research Council
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Keywords
- serotonin, costly punishment, fairness, retaliation, striatum, ventral striatum, dorsal striatum, tryptophan depletion, cooperation, social norms, neuroeconomics
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Altruism, Cooperative Behavior, Corpus Striatum, Double-Blind Method, Female, Games, Experimental, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Photic Stimulation, Punishment, Serotonin, Tryptophan, Cross-Over Studies, Young Adult
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