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Review
. 2020 Jun:113:426-439.
doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2020.04.011. Epub 2020 Apr 14.

The emerging neuroscience of social punishment: Meta-analytic evidence

Gabriele Bellucci  1 , Julia A Camilleri  2 , Vijeth Iyengar  3 , Simon B Eickhoff  2 , Frank Krueger  4
Affiliations
Review

The emerging neuroscience of social punishment: Meta-analytic evidence

Gabriele Bellucci et al. Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2020 Jun.

Abstract

Social punishment (SOP)-third-party punishment (TPP) and second-party punishment (SPP)-sanctions norm-deviant behavior. The hierarchical punishment model (HPM) posits that TPP is an extension of SPP and both recruit common processes engaging large-scale domain-general brain networks. Here, we provided meta-analytic evidence to the HPM by combining the activation likelihood estimation approach with connectivity analyses and hierarchical clustering analyses. Although both forms of SOP engaged the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and bilateral anterior insula (AI), a functional differentiation also emerged with TPP preferentially engaging social cognitive regions (temporoparietal junction) and SPP affective regions (AI). Further, although both TPP and SPP recruit domain-general networks (salience, default-mode, and central-executive networks), some specificity in network organization was observed. By revealing differences and commonalities of the neural networks consistently activated by different types of SOP, our findings contribute to a better understanding of the neuropsychological mechanisms of social punishment behavior--one of the most peculiar human behaviors.

Keywords: Activation likelihood estimation; Meta-analytic connectivity mapping; Resting-state functional connectivity; Second-party punishment; Social punishment; Third-party punishment.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors are unaware of any conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Meta-analytic results.
Results of meta-analytic ALE analyses for SOP (A), SPP (B) and TPP (C). The depicted brain regions are consistently activated clusters across published fMRI studies that survived correction for multiple comparisons controlling for cluster-level familywise error (cFWE < .05). Finally, overlaps of the three meta-analytic maps (D) are shown to compare the anatomical extent of the observed clusters. L, left; R, right; ALE, activation likelihood estimation; fMRI, functional magnetic resonance imaging; ∩, conjunction; DLPFC, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; AI, anterior insula; VLPFC, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex; SOP, social punishment; SPP, second-party punishment; TPP, third-party punishment.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.. Task-free, resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) for SOP.
Regions significantly connected to the three clusters consistently activated for SOP, namely, the left AI (red), left DLPFC (green) and right AI (blue) based on RSFC analyses. L, left; R, right; ∩, conjunction; SOP, social punishment; AI, anterior insula; DLPFC, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; cluster-level familywise error (cFWE) < .05.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.. Task-free, resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) for SPP.
Regions significantly connected to the three clusters consistently activated for SPP, namely, the left AI (red) and right AI (green) based on RSFC analyses. L, left; R, right; ∩, conjunction; SPP, second-party punishment; AI, anterior insula; cluster-level familywise error (cFWE) < .05.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.. Task-free, resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) for TPP.
Regions significantly connected to the three clusters consistently activated for TPP, namely, the left pTPJ (red) and left VLPFC (green) based on RSFC analyses. L, left; ∩, conjunction; TPP, third-party punishment; pTPJ, posterior temporoparietal junction; VLPFC, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex; cluster-level familywise error (cFWE) < .05.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.. Consensus connectivity network.
Results of consensus connectivity map for SOP (A) and overlaps of consensus connectivity maps for SPP and TPP (B). SOP, social punishment; TPP, third-party punishment; SPP, second-party punishment; L, left; R, right; SPL, superior parietal lobule; DLPFC, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; FPC, frontoparietal cortex; AI, anterior insula; MCC, middle cingulate cortex; AG, angular gyrus; Put, putamen; STG, superior temporal gyrus.
Figure 6.
Figure 6.. Hierarchical clustering analyses.
Results from the clustering analyses based on the RSFC profiles of the meta-analytic clusters for SOP (A), SPP (B), TPP (C) and for the overlapping regions of the SPP and TPP results (D). L, left; R, right; AG, angular gyrus; Thai, thalamus; Caud, caudate; Cbl, cerebellum; IPL, inferior parietal lobule; SPL, superior parietal lobule; IFG, inferior frontal gyrus; OrbC, orbital cortex; MTG, middle temporal gyrus; MCC, middle cingulate cortex; PreMC, premotor cortex; Put, putamen; STG, superior temporal gyrus; TP, temporal pole; MFG, middle frontal gyrus; PreG, precentral gyrus; ITG, inferior temporal gyrus.
Figure 7.
Figure 7.. Functional decoding analyses for SOP.
Functional profiles of the left AI (A), left DLPFC (B) and right AI (C) and their functional decoding (D) based on meta-categories in the BrainMap database. Around the spider plot are the behavioral domains yielded by forward inference, i.e., categories of mental operations likely to be isolated by the experiments in the BrainMap database. In parentheses are the subcategories that specify the behavioral domains. Depicted values are likelihood ratios. L, left; R, right; SOP, social punishment; AI, anterior insula; DLPFC, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; *FDR < .05.
Figure 8.
Figure 8.. Functional decoding analyses for SPP.
Functional profiles of the left AI (A) and right AI (B) and their functional decoding (C) based on meta-categories in the BrainMap database. Around the spider plot are the behavioral domains yielded by forward inference, i.e., categories of mental operations likely to be isolated by the experiments in the BrainMap database. In parentheses are the subcategories that specify the behavioral domains. Depicted values are likelihood ratios. L, left; R, right; SPP, second-party punishment; AI, anterior insula; *FDR < .05.
Figure 9.
Figure 9.. Functional decoding analyses for TPP.
Functional profiles of the left AI (A) and right AI (B) and their functional decoding (C) based on meta-categories in the BrainMap database. Around the spider plot are the behavioral domains yielded by forward inference, i.e., categories of mental operations likely to be isolated by the experiments in the BrainMap database. In parentheses are the subcategories that specify the behavioral domains. Depicted values are likelihood ratios. L, left; TPP, third-party punishment; pTPJ, posterior temporoparietal junction; VLPFC, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex; *FDR < .05.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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