Brain Where moral decisions arise

No special region responsible for moral decisions in the brain

04/18/2012

German scientists have for the first time analyzed which brain regions are responsible for moral decisions. They have found that no special brain region takes on this task. Rather, they are rational processes of processing, on the basis of which moral judgments would be made.

Moral values ​​are essential in living together
Moral values ​​are essential in the coexistence of humans. Where exactly moral decisions are made in the brain have recently been investigated by two German scientists. It turned out that the brain areas for moral reasoning are almost identical to those responsible for understanding thoughts or other people's emotions. "The finding speaks against the existence of a specifically moral brain region and for the development of complex social services such as moral decisions from developmentally older brain functions," explains the medical student Danilo Bzdok, who is part of the International DFG Research Training Group "Schizophrenia and Autism" at the Clinic for Psychiatry, psychotherapy and psychosomatics at Aachen University Hospital researches. "Large parts of the medial prefrontal cortex, the precutus, the temporo-parietal junction as well as the amygdala and the posterior cingulate cortex were involved in these processes as well as in moral decisions." Bzdok is also involved with Professor Simon Eickhoff of the Heinrich Heine University of Düsseldorf at the Institute of Neurosciences at Forschungszentrum Jülich.

With the so-called "Activation Likelihood Estimation Meta-Analysis", a new method for the statistical summary of functional imaging findings, Eickhoff and Bzdok examined hundreds of study data for statistical similarities. The two scientists were thus able to make a comparison between the brain regions, which are particularly active in moral, rational and emotion-based decisions.

Moral decisions are based on rational processing in the brain
The analysis of functional imaging findings also revealed that moral decisions are largely based on rational processing in the brain. "These decision-making processes take place in the so-called 'default mode' regions, which are responsible for processing a wide variety of abstract social cognitive considerations," explains Eickhoff.

Moral thinking, then, is first and foremost a rational process involved in the interpersonal relationship through the empathic empathy of emotions. "This image of human morality fits in very well with clinical observations of psychopaths who outperform on theoretical moral issues, but who behave immorally for lack of empathy in daily life," adds Eickhoff.

Women and men show different moral emotions
It has long been known that women and men think and feel differently. Researchers at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México in Queretaro last year used a brain scanner to investigate the so-called moral emotion of women and men in the brain. The team around Fernando Barrios observed the activity of various brain regions as the subjects looked at pictures and gave signs of compassion, such as looking at photos of starving children.

Although men and women expressed sympathy when looking at the images, the corresponding images of the brain scan showed very different measurement results. Barrios reports that the images of the female brains at first glance looked richer and more complex. The men's brains showed activity only in a few, focused areas.

Women who feel empathy are thus activating the "Gyrus cinguli", which is an important center of empathy, as it brings together emotionally relevant information from different regions of the brain for action decisions. Although this region is not active in males, it is the parietal lobe that tends to analyze different environmental observations. (Ag)

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