Cargando…

Regional and Temporal Differences in Brain Activity With Morally Good or Bad Judgments in Men: A Magnetoencephalography Study

Many neuroimaging studies on morality focus on functional brain areas that relate to moral judgment specifically in morally negative situations. To date, there have been few studies on differences in brain activity under conditions of being morally good and bad along a continuum. To explore not only...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Hiraishi, Hirotoshi, Ikeda, Takashi, Saito, Daisuke N., Hasegawa, Chiaki, Kitagawa, Sachiko, Takahashi, Tetsuya, Kikuchi, Mitsuru, Ouchi, Yasuomi
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8072487/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33911998
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2021.596711
_version_ 1783683919831367680
author Hiraishi, Hirotoshi
Ikeda, Takashi
Saito, Daisuke N.
Hasegawa, Chiaki
Kitagawa, Sachiko
Takahashi, Tetsuya
Kikuchi, Mitsuru
Ouchi, Yasuomi
author_facet Hiraishi, Hirotoshi
Ikeda, Takashi
Saito, Daisuke N.
Hasegawa, Chiaki
Kitagawa, Sachiko
Takahashi, Tetsuya
Kikuchi, Mitsuru
Ouchi, Yasuomi
author_sort Hiraishi, Hirotoshi
collection PubMed
description Many neuroimaging studies on morality focus on functional brain areas that relate to moral judgment specifically in morally negative situations. To date, there have been few studies on differences in brain activity under conditions of being morally good and bad along a continuum. To explore not only the brain regions involved but also their functional connections during moral judgments, we used magnetoencephalography (MEG), which is superior to other imaging modalities for analyzing time-dependent brain activities; only men were recruited because sex differences might be a confounding factor. While analyses showed that general patterns of brain activation and connectivity were similar between morally good judgments (MGJs) and morally bad judgments (MBJs), activation in brain areas that subserve emotion and “theory of mind” on the right hemisphere was larger in MGJ than MBJ conditions. In the left local temporal region, the connectivity between brain areas related to emotion and reward/punishment was stronger in MBJ than MGJ conditions. The time-frequency analysis showed distinct laterality (left hemisphere dominant) occurring during early moral information processing in MBJ conditions compared to MGJ conditions and phase-dependent differences in the appearance of theta waves between MBJ and MGJ conditions. During MBJs, connections within the hemispheric regions were more robust than those between hemispheric regions. These results suggested that the local temporal region on the left hemisphere is more important in the execution of MBJs during early moral valence processing than in that with MGJs. Shorter neuronal connections within the hemisphere may allow to make MBJs punctual.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-8072487
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher Frontiers Media S.A.
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-80724872021-04-27 Regional and Temporal Differences in Brain Activity With Morally Good or Bad Judgments in Men: A Magnetoencephalography Study Hiraishi, Hirotoshi Ikeda, Takashi Saito, Daisuke N. Hasegawa, Chiaki Kitagawa, Sachiko Takahashi, Tetsuya Kikuchi, Mitsuru Ouchi, Yasuomi Front Neurosci Neuroscience Many neuroimaging studies on morality focus on functional brain areas that relate to moral judgment specifically in morally negative situations. To date, there have been few studies on differences in brain activity under conditions of being morally good and bad along a continuum. To explore not only the brain regions involved but also their functional connections during moral judgments, we used magnetoencephalography (MEG), which is superior to other imaging modalities for analyzing time-dependent brain activities; only men were recruited because sex differences might be a confounding factor. While analyses showed that general patterns of brain activation and connectivity were similar between morally good judgments (MGJs) and morally bad judgments (MBJs), activation in brain areas that subserve emotion and “theory of mind” on the right hemisphere was larger in MGJ than MBJ conditions. In the left local temporal region, the connectivity between brain areas related to emotion and reward/punishment was stronger in MBJ than MGJ conditions. The time-frequency analysis showed distinct laterality (left hemisphere dominant) occurring during early moral information processing in MBJ conditions compared to MGJ conditions and phase-dependent differences in the appearance of theta waves between MBJ and MGJ conditions. During MBJs, connections within the hemispheric regions were more robust than those between hemispheric regions. These results suggested that the local temporal region on the left hemisphere is more important in the execution of MBJs during early moral valence processing than in that with MGJs. Shorter neuronal connections within the hemisphere may allow to make MBJs punctual. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-04-12 /pmc/articles/PMC8072487/ /pubmed/33911998 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2021.596711 Text en Copyright © 2021 Hiraishi, Ikeda, Saito, Hasegawa, Kitagawa, Takahashi, Kikuchi and Ouchi. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Hiraishi, Hirotoshi
Ikeda, Takashi
Saito, Daisuke N.
Hasegawa, Chiaki
Kitagawa, Sachiko
Takahashi, Tetsuya
Kikuchi, Mitsuru
Ouchi, Yasuomi
Regional and Temporal Differences in Brain Activity With Morally Good or Bad Judgments in Men: A Magnetoencephalography Study
title Regional and Temporal Differences in Brain Activity With Morally Good or Bad Judgments in Men: A Magnetoencephalography Study
title_full Regional and Temporal Differences in Brain Activity With Morally Good or Bad Judgments in Men: A Magnetoencephalography Study
title_fullStr Regional and Temporal Differences in Brain Activity With Morally Good or Bad Judgments in Men: A Magnetoencephalography Study
title_full_unstemmed Regional and Temporal Differences in Brain Activity With Morally Good or Bad Judgments in Men: A Magnetoencephalography Study
title_short Regional and Temporal Differences in Brain Activity With Morally Good or Bad Judgments in Men: A Magnetoencephalography Study
title_sort regional and temporal differences in brain activity with morally good or bad judgments in men: a magnetoencephalography study
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8072487/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33911998
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2021.596711
work_keys_str_mv AT hiraishihirotoshi regionalandtemporaldifferencesinbrainactivitywithmorallygoodorbadjudgmentsinmenamagnetoencephalographystudy
AT ikedatakashi regionalandtemporaldifferencesinbrainactivitywithmorallygoodorbadjudgmentsinmenamagnetoencephalographystudy
AT saitodaisuken regionalandtemporaldifferencesinbrainactivitywithmorallygoodorbadjudgmentsinmenamagnetoencephalographystudy
AT hasegawachiaki regionalandtemporaldifferencesinbrainactivitywithmorallygoodorbadjudgmentsinmenamagnetoencephalographystudy
AT kitagawasachiko regionalandtemporaldifferencesinbrainactivitywithmorallygoodorbadjudgmentsinmenamagnetoencephalographystudy
AT takahashitetsuya regionalandtemporaldifferencesinbrainactivitywithmorallygoodorbadjudgmentsinmenamagnetoencephalographystudy
AT kikuchimitsuru regionalandtemporaldifferencesinbrainactivitywithmorallygoodorbadjudgmentsinmenamagnetoencephalographystudy
AT ouchiyasuomi regionalandtemporaldifferencesinbrainactivitywithmorallygoodorbadjudgmentsinmenamagnetoencephalographystudy