Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2007 Jun;2(2):84-92.
doi: 10.1093/scan/nsm001.

Selective deficit in personal moral judgment following damage to ventromedial prefrontal cortex

Elisa Ciaramelli  1 , Michela Muccioli, Elisabetta Làdavas, Giuseppe di Pellegrino
Affiliations

Selective deficit in personal moral judgment following damage to ventromedial prefrontal cortex

Elisa Ciaramelli et al. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2007 Jun.

Abstract

Recent fMRI evidence has detected increased medial prefrontal activation during contemplation of personal moral dilemmas compared to impersonal ones, which suggests that this cortical region plays a role in personal moral judgment. However, functional imaging results cannot definitively establish that a brain area is necessary for a particular cognitive process. This requires evidence from lesion techniques, such as studies of human patients with focal brain damage. Here, we tested 7 patients with lesions in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and 12 healthy individuals in personal moral dilemmas, impersonal moral dilemmas and non-moral dilemmas. Compared to normal controls, patients were more willing to judge personal moral violations as acceptable behaviors in personal moral dilemmas, and they did so more quickly. In contrast, their performance in impersonal and non-moral dilemmas was comparable to that of controls. These results indicate that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is necessary to oppose personal moral violations, possibly by mediating anticipatory, self-focused, emotional reactions that may exert strong influence on moral choice and behavior.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Location and degree of overlap of brain lesions. The figure shows the lesions of the seven ventromedial prefrontal patients. Lesions are projected on the same five axial templates following the method developed by Damasio and Damasio (1989). The level of the axial slices has been marked by black lines on the mesial view of a right hemisphere drawing. Progressively darker shades denote the degree to which lesions involve the same brain regions, as indicated in the legend.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Response time for ‘appropriate’ and ‘inappropriate’ responses to personal and impersonal moral dilemmas in patients and controls. Bars refer to 1 standard error of the mean.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Proportion of ‘appropriate’ responses to personal and impersonal moral dilemmas in patients and controls. Bars refer to 1 standard error of the mean.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Amodio DM, Frith CD. Meeting of minds: the medial prefrontal cortex and social cognition. Nature Neuroscience Reviews|. 2006;7:268–77. - PubMed
    1. Anderson SW, Bechara A, Damasio H, Tranel D, Damasio AR. Impairment in social and moral behaviour related to early damage in human prefrontal cortex. Nature Neuroscience. 1999;2:1032–7. - PubMed
    1. Bechara A. Decision making, impulse control and loss of willpower to resist drugs: a neurocognitive prospective. Nature Neuroscience. 2005;8:1458–63. - PubMed
    1. Bechara A, Damasio AR, Damasio H, Anderson SW. Insensitivity to future consequences following damage to human prefrontal cortex. Cognition. 1994;50:7–15. - PubMed
    1. Beer JS, John OP, Scabini D, Knight RT. Orbitofrontal cortex and social behavior: integrating self-monitoring and emotion-cognition interactions. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 2006;18:871–9. - PubMed