Journal
HUMAN BRAIN MAPPING
Volume 35, Issue 12, Pages 6067-6076Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1002/hbm.22605
Keywords
disgust; functional magnetic resonance imaging; dilemma; neuropeptide; self-processing
Funding
- Starting Independent Researcher Grant (NEMO-Neuromodulation of Emotion) by Ministry of Innovation, Science, Research & Technology of the German State of North Rhine-Westphalia (MIWFT)
- Starting Independent Researcher Grant (NEMO-Neuromodulation of Emotion) by University of Bonn
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [91132720]
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Current perspectives on the evolutionary roots of human morality suggest it arose to incentivize social cooperation by promoting feelings of disgust toward selfish behavior, although the underlying neural mechanisms remain unclear. To investigate whether the ancient mammalian neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) influences self-referential processing in the domains of emotion evaluation and moral decision making, we conducted a pharmaco-functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and a behavioral experiment involving 157 healthy women and men who were treated with either OXT (24 IU) or placebo (PLC) intranasally. Our results show that OXT facilitated cortical midline responses during self-processing of disgust and selectively promoted self-interest moral judgments in men. In contrast, in women OXT increased the reaction time difference between accepted and rejected moral dilemmas and led them to suppress their self-interest and respond more altruistically for the benefit of others. Taken together, these findings suggest an OXT-related sexual dimorphism in human moral behavior which evolved adaptively to optimize both protection and nurturing of offspring by promoting selfish behavior in men and altruistic behavior in women. Hum Brain Mapp 35:6067-6076, 2014. (c) 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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