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

Text 1074.full.pdf - Published Version Restricted to registered users only Available under License Publisher holds Copyright. Download (415kB) | Request a copy

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.

Interest & Impact

Downloads

0 since deposited on 15 Feb 2017
0 in the past 12 months

Citations

5 Citations in Web of Science ®
6 Citations in Scopus

Search

in Google Scholar™

Services

Actions (login required)

Edit item

Actions (login required)

Edit item