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Mendez MF. The Implications of Moral Neuroscience for Brain Disease: Review and Update. Cogn Behav Neurol 2023; 36:133-144. [PMID: 37326483 DOI: 10.1097/wnn.0000000000000344] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/15/2022] [Accepted: 03/06/2023] [Indexed: 06/17/2023]
Abstract
The last 2 decades have seen an explosion of neuroscience research on morality, with significant implications for brain disease. Many studies have proposed a neuromorality based on intuitive sentiments or emotions aimed at maintaining collaborative social groups. These moral emotions are normative, deontological, and action based, with a rapid evaluation of intentionality. The neuromoral circuitry interacts with the basic mechanisms of socioemotional cognition, including social perception, behavioral control, theory of mind, and social emotions such as empathy. Moral transgressions may result from primary disorders of moral intuitions, or they may be secondary moral impairments from disturbances in these other socioemotional cognitive mechanisms. The proposed neuromoral system for moral intuitions has its major hub in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and engages other frontal regions as well as the anterior insulae, anterior temporal lobe structures, and right temporoparietal junction and adjacent posterior superior temporal sulcus. Brain diseases that affect these regions, such as behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, may result in primary disturbances of moral behavior, including criminal behavior. Individuals with focal brain tumors and other lesions in the right temporal and medial frontal regions have committed moral violations. These transgressions can have social and legal consequences for the individuals and require increased awareness of neuromoral disturbances among such individuals with brain diseases.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mario F Mendez
- Departments of Neurology
- Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California
- Neurology Service, Neurobehavior Unit, V.A. Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, Los Angeles, California
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Ayala OD, Banta D, Hovhannisyan M, Duarte L, Lozano A, García JR, Montañés P, Davis SW, De Brigard F. Episodic Past, Future, and counterfactual thinking in Relapsing-Remitting Multiple sclerosis. Neuroimage Clin 2022; 34:103033. [PMID: 35561552 PMCID: PMC9112031 DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2022.103033] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/22/2021] [Revised: 05/01/2022] [Accepted: 05/03/2022] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Performance in episodic past, future or counterfactual thinking in relapsing-remitting MS and controls was explored. Behavioral and diffusion weighted imaging were used to evaluate associations between white matter integrity and group differences in performance. Relative to controls, MS patients showed reductions in episodic details across all three simulations. Reduced white matter integrity in three association tracts predicted this reduction in episodic details during counterfactual simulations.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a progressive disease characterized by widespread white matter lesions in the brain and spinal cord. In addition to well-characterized motor deficits, MS results in cognitive impairments in several domains, notably in episodic autobiographical memory. Recent studies have also revealed that patients with MS exhibit deficits in episodic future thinking, i.e., our capacity to imagine possible events that may occur in our personal future. Both episodic memory and episodic future thinking have been shown to share cognitive and neural mechanisms with a related kind of hypothetical simulation known as episodic counterfactual thinking: our capacity to imagine alternative ways in which past personal events could have occurred but did not. However, the extent to which episodic counterfactual thinking is affected in MS is still unknown. The current study sought to explore this issue by comparing performance in mental simulation tasks involving either past, future or counterfactual thoughts in relapsing-remitting MS. Diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) measures were also extracted to determine whether changes in structural pathways connecting the brain’s default mode network (DMN) would be associated with group differences in task performance. Relative to controls, patients showed marked reductions in the number of internal details across all mental simulations, but no differences in the number of external and semantic-based details. It was also found that, relative to controls, patients with relapsing-remitting MS reported reduced composition ratings for episodic simulations depicting counterfactual events, but not so for actual past or possible future episodes. Additionally, three DWI measures of white matter integrity—fractional anisotropy, radial diffusivity and streamline counts—showed reliable differences between patients with relapsing-remitting MS and matched healthy controls. Importantly, DWI measures associated with reduced white matter integrity in three association tracts on the DMN—the right superior longitudinal fasciculus, the left hippocampal portion of the cingulum and the left inferior longitudinal fasciculus—predicted reductions in the number of internal details during episodic counterfactual simulations. Taken together, these results help to illuminate impairments in episodic simulation in relapsing-remitting MS and show, for the first time, a differential association between white matter integrity and deficits in episodic counterfactual thinking in individuals with relapsing-remitting MS.
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Affiliation(s)
- Oscar Daniel Ayala
- Department of Psychology, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia; Clínica de Marly, Bogotá, Colombia
| | - Daisy Banta
- Department of Neurology, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, USA
| | - Mariam Hovhannisyan
- Department of Neurology, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, USA
| | | | | | | | - Patricia Montañés
- Department of Psychology, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia
| | - Simon W Davis
- Department of Neurology, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, USA; Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
| | - Felipe De Brigard
- Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA; Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA; Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA; Department of Philosophy, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA.
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