Age-related and individual differences in neural correlates of moral decision making

• Main Authors: Liu, Ting-Yu, 劉亭妤
• Other Authors: Huang, Chih-Mao
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2019
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/8xeyx2

碩士 === 國立交通大學 === 生物資訊及系統生物研究所 === 108 === Moral decision-making refers to the socio-cognitive ability to make correct choices for the proper behaviors. In the moral situation, individuals make proper decisions according to the experiences formed in the past when criticizing right and wrong, estimating the pros and cons, and controlling the action. Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies revealed that the neural processing of moral decision-making are associated with the distributed network of frontal and parieto-temporal regions, including medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and temporoparietal junction (TPJ). In this fMRI study, a mixed design was used to examine age-related and individual differences in neural correlates of moral decision making. Twenty-one young and 31healthy older participants were instructed to view a series of pictures to represent a daily scenario and make good or bad choices during scanning. Whole-brain analysis results revealed that older adults exhibited greater and more distributed activation in mPFC, ACC, and bilateral TPJ in which the brain regions have been identified to be associated with moral cognition. Furthermore, older adults showed greater activation in bilateral posterior parietal cortex, amygdala, and hippocampus, probably involving strategic retrieval processes of social decision making. These results demonstrate the age-related and individual differences in neural correlates related to moral cognition and moral decision making.