Parsing the neural correlates of moral cognition: ALE meta-analysis on morality, theory of mind, and empathy

Morally judicious behavior forms the fabric of human sociality. Here, we sought to investigate neural activity associated with different facets of moral thought. Previous research suggests that the cognitive and emotional sources of moral decisions might be closely related to theory of mind, an abst...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Brain Structure and Function 2012-10, Vol.217 (4), p.783-796
Main Authors: Bzdok, Danilo, Schilbach, Leonhard, Vogeley, Kai, Schneider, Karla, Laird, Angela R., Langner, Robert, Eickhoff, Simon B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Biomedicine
Brain Mapping - methods
Cell Biology
Cognition
Cognition & reasoning
Cognition - physiology
Cognitive ability
Convergence
Emotions
Empathy
Empathy - physiology
Ethics
Fabrics
Functional anatomy
Functional Neuroimaging
Humans
Likelihood Functions
Medical imaging
Morality
Morals
Motivation
Nerve Net
Neural networks
Neurobiology
Neuroimaging
Neurology
Neurosciences
Original
Original Article
Reviews
Structure-function relationships
Systematic review
Theory of Mind - physiology
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Morally judicious behavior forms the fabric of human sociality. Here, we sought to investigate neural activity associated with different facets of moral thought. Previous research suggests that the cognitive and emotional sources of moral decisions might be closely related to theory of mind, an abstract-cognitive skill, and empathy, a rapid-emotional skill. That is, moral decisions are thought to crucially refer to other persons’ representation of intentions and behavioral outcomes as well as (vicariously experienced) emotional states. We thus hypothesized that moral decisions might be implemented in brain areas engaged in ‘theory of mind’ and empathy. This assumption was tested by conducting a large-scale activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies, which assessed 2,607 peak coordinates from 247 experiments in 1,790 participants. The brain areas that were consistently involved in moral decisions showed more convergence with the ALE analysis targeting theory of mind versus empathy. More specifically, the neurotopographical overlap between morality and empathy disfavors a role of affective sharing during moral decisions. Ultimately, our results provide evidence that the neural network underlying moral decisions is probably domain-global and might be dissociable into cognitive and affective sub-systems.
ISSN:1863-2653
1863-2661
0340-2061
DOI:10.1007/s00429-012-0380-y