Human moral decision-making through the lens of Parkinson’s disease

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the basal ganglia (BG) and thalamocortical circuitry. While defective motor control has long been considered the defining symptom of PD, mounting evidence indicates that the BG are fundament...

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Autores principales: Ponsi, Giorgia, Scattolin, Marina, Villa, Riccardo, Aglioti, Salvatore Maria
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7925586/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33654110
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41531-021-00167-w
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author Ponsi, Giorgia
Scattolin, Marina
Villa, Riccardo
Aglioti, Salvatore Maria
author_facet Ponsi, Giorgia
Scattolin, Marina
Villa, Riccardo
Aglioti, Salvatore Maria
author_sort Ponsi, Giorgia
collection PubMed
description Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the basal ganglia (BG) and thalamocortical circuitry. While defective motor control has long been considered the defining symptom of PD, mounting evidence indicates that the BG are fundamentally important for a multitude of cognitive, emotional, and motivational processes in addition to motor function. Here, we review alterations in moral decision-making in people with PD, specifically in the context of deceptive behavior. We report that PD patients exhibit two opposite behavioral patterns: hyper- and hypo-honesty. The hyper-honest subgroup engages in deception less often than matched controls, even when lying is associated with a monetary payoff. This behavioral pattern seems to be linked to dopaminergic hypo-activity, implying enhanced harm avoidance, risk aversion, non-impulsivity, and reduced reward sensitivity. On the contrary, the hypo-honest subgroup—often characterized by the additional diagnosis of impulse control disorders (ICDs) and dopamine dysregulation syndrome (DDS)—deceives more often than both PD patients without ICDs/DDS and controls. This behavioral pattern appears to be associated with dopaminergic hyperactivity, which underpins enhanced novelty-seeking, risk-proneness, impulsivity, and reward sensitivity. We posit that these two complementary behavioral patterns might be related to dysfunction of the dopaminergic reward system, leading to reduced or enhanced motivation to deceive. Only a few studies have directly investigated moral decision-making in PD and other neurodegenerative disorders affecting the BG, and further research on the causal role of subcortical structures in shaping moral behavior is needed.
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spelling pubmed-79255862021-03-19 Human moral decision-making through the lens of Parkinson’s disease Ponsi, Giorgia Scattolin, Marina Villa, Riccardo Aglioti, Salvatore Maria NPJ Parkinsons Dis Review Article Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the basal ganglia (BG) and thalamocortical circuitry. While defective motor control has long been considered the defining symptom of PD, mounting evidence indicates that the BG are fundamentally important for a multitude of cognitive, emotional, and motivational processes in addition to motor function. Here, we review alterations in moral decision-making in people with PD, specifically in the context of deceptive behavior. We report that PD patients exhibit two opposite behavioral patterns: hyper- and hypo-honesty. The hyper-honest subgroup engages in deception less often than matched controls, even when lying is associated with a monetary payoff. This behavioral pattern seems to be linked to dopaminergic hypo-activity, implying enhanced harm avoidance, risk aversion, non-impulsivity, and reduced reward sensitivity. On the contrary, the hypo-honest subgroup—often characterized by the additional diagnosis of impulse control disorders (ICDs) and dopamine dysregulation syndrome (DDS)—deceives more often than both PD patients without ICDs/DDS and controls. This behavioral pattern appears to be associated with dopaminergic hyperactivity, which underpins enhanced novelty-seeking, risk-proneness, impulsivity, and reward sensitivity. We posit that these two complementary behavioral patterns might be related to dysfunction of the dopaminergic reward system, leading to reduced or enhanced motivation to deceive. Only a few studies have directly investigated moral decision-making in PD and other neurodegenerative disorders affecting the BG, and further research on the causal role of subcortical structures in shaping moral behavior is needed. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-03-02 /pmc/articles/PMC7925586/ /pubmed/33654110 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41531-021-00167-w Text en © The Author(s) 2021 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Review Article
Ponsi, Giorgia
Scattolin, Marina
Villa, Riccardo
Aglioti, Salvatore Maria
Human moral decision-making through the lens of Parkinson’s disease
title Human moral decision-making through the lens of Parkinson’s disease
title_full Human moral decision-making through the lens of Parkinson’s disease
title_fullStr Human moral decision-making through the lens of Parkinson’s disease
title_full_unstemmed Human moral decision-making through the lens of Parkinson’s disease
title_short Human moral decision-making through the lens of Parkinson’s disease
title_sort human moral decision-making through the lens of parkinson’s disease
topic Review Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7925586/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33654110
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41531-021-00167-w
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