All known human societies establish social order by punishing violators of social norms. However, little is known about how the brain processes the punishment threat associated with norm violations. We use fMRI to study the neural circuitry behind social norm compliance by comparing a treatment in which norm violations can be punished with a control treatment in which punishment is impossible. Individuals' increase in norm compliance when punishment is possible exhibits a strong positive correlation with activations in the lateral orbitofrontal cortex and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Moreover, lateral orbitofrontal cortex activity is strongly correlated with Machiavellian personality characteristics. These findings indicate a neural network involved in social norm compliance that might constitute an important basis for human sociality. Different activations of this network reveal individual differences in the behavioral response to the punishment threat and might thus provide a deeper understanding of the neurobiological sources of pathologies such as antisocial personality disorder.
Pubmed ID: 17920024 RIS Download
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Software package for analysis of brain imaging data sequences. Sequences can be a series of images from different cohorts, or time-series from same subject. Current release is designed for analysis of fMRI, PET, SPECT, EEG and MEG.
View all literature mentionsA software toolbox that provides a method for generating Region of Interest (ROI) masks based on the Talairach Daemon database. The atlases include Brodmann area, Lobar, Hemisphere, Anatomic Label (gyral anatomy), and Tissue type. The atlases have been extended to the vertex in MNI space, and corrected for the precentral gyrus anomaly. Additional atlases (including non-human atlases) can be added without difficulty.
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