The brain's functional network architecture reveals human motives

Hein, Grit; Morishima, Yosuke; Leiberg, Susanne; Sul, Sunhae; Fehr, Ernst (2016). The brain's functional network architecture reveals human motives. Science, 351(6277), pp. 1074-1078. American Association for the Advancement of Science 10.1126/science.aac7992

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Goal-directed human behaviors are driven by motives. Motives are, however, purely mental constructs that are not directly observable. Here, we show that the brain's functional network architecture captures information that predicts different motives behind the same altruistic act with high accuracy. In contrast, mere activity in these regions contains no information about motives. Empathy-based altruism is primarily characterized by a positive connectivity from the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) to the anterior insula (AI), whereas reciprocity-based altruism additionally invokes strong positive connectivity from the AI to the ACC and even stronger positive connectivity from the AI to the ventral striatum. Moreover, predominantly selfish individuals show distinct functional architectures compared to altruists, and they only increase altruistic behavior in response to empathy inductions, but not reciprocity inductions.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

07 Faculty of Human Sciences > Institute of Psychology > Social Neuroscience and Social Psychology
04 Faculty of Medicine > University Psychiatric Services > University Hospital of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy > Translational Research Center

UniBE Contributor:

Hein, Grit, Morishima, Yosuke

Subjects:

300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology
600 Technology > 610 Medicine & health

ISSN:

0036-8075

Publisher:

American Association for the Advancement of Science

Language:

English

Submitter:

Yosuke Morishima

Date Deposited:

15 Feb 2017 15:45

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:00

Publisher DOI:

10.1126/science.aac7992

PubMed ID:

26941317

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.92192

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/92192

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