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Neural and Cognitive Characteristics of Extraordinary Altruists - Coggle…
Neural and Cognitive Characteristics of Extraordinary Altruists
Aim
To investigate "extraordinary altruists", specifically through looking at the differences in their amygdalas (through fMRI), compared to the amygdala of others, in particular, those of psychopaths
Procedure
Participants: 39 adults, 23-56yo, 19 kidney donors
Face-emotion neuroimaging paradigm directly replicating one that has identified amygdala hypoactivation in psychopathy
During fMRI scanning, altruists and controls viewed fearful, angry, and neutral facial expressions drawn from the Pictures of Facial Affect series, presented in randomized order
After fMRI scanning, participants underwent anatomical MRI scanning and neurocognitive testing that included a measure of face-emotion recognition in which participants viewed the same emotional expressions presented during scanning
In addition to disgust, happiness, sadness, surprise
Indicated expressed emotion in each
All participants completed personality assessments of psychopathy, empathy, and mentalizing
Region-of-interest analysis and applied a double-contrast to activation in right and left amygdalae
Findings
In right amygdala, altruists exhibited increased blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal in response to fearful facial expressions
No similar cluster was found in the left amygdala
Whole-brain analysis for responses to fearful expressions yielded only a single other region in which altruists exphibited increased BOLD signal relative to altrusits: right lateral prefrontal cortex
BOLD responses to anger in right and left amygdalae yielded no comparable group differences
Pattern of emotion recognition in the behavioral task that paralleled imagining results
Altruists recognized fear better than controls, but not anger
Individuals who’ve performed an act of extraordinary altruism can be distinguished from healthy control by increased righ amygdala volue, as well as heightened responsiveness in right amygdala to fearful facial expressions, which may support enhanced recognition of these expressions
Patterns are consistent with previous suggestions of a biological basis for individual differences in altruistic behavior
Summary of Previous Literature
Humans’ tendency to engage in altruistic behaviors is unevenly distributed across the population
Individual variation in altruistic tendencies may be genetically mediated
Neural endophenotypes of heightened or extreme antisocial behavior have been identified in studies of psychopaths
Altruism poses problems for evolutionary theory
Polygenic mediation of altruistic behavior, as well as specific genetic variants, can increase altruism in humans
psychopaths are individuals who demonstrate a failure to empathize with others and thus show prosocial behavior - there is a lot of research that shows that the brains of psychopaths are different from the brains of the average person
Psychopathy is a heritable developmental disorder characterized by an uncaring nature, antisocial and aggressive behavior, and deficient prosocial emotions such as empathy, guilt, and remorse.
Psychopaths exhibit consistent patterns of neuroanatomical and functional impairments, such as reductions in the volume of the amygdala and in the responsiveness of this structure to fear-relevant stimuli.
POC
Very specific sample size; low external validity, not generalizable to most of the population as many people wouldn’t be categorized as "extraordinary altruists"
very difficult to replicate, as individuals
possess different brain structures.
Males and females' brain regions were sampled. With this being said, structural differences were not taken into account; could act as a confounding variable.