Mode of Effective Connectivity within a Putative Neural Network Differentiates Moral Cognitions Related to Care and Justice Ethics

BACKGROUND: Moral sensitivity refers to the interpretive awareness of moral conflict and can be justice or care oriented. Justice ethics is associated primarily with human rights and the application of moral rules, whereas care ethics is related to human needs and a situational approach involving social emotions. Among the core brain regions involved in moral issue processing are: medial prefrontal cortex, anterior (ACC) and posterior (PCC) cingulate cortex, posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), insula and amygdala. This study sought to inform the long standing debate of whether care and justice moral ethics represent one or two different forms of cognition. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Model-free and model-based connectivity analysis were used to identify functional neural networks underlying care and justice ethics for a moral sensitivity task. In addition to modest differences in patterns of associated neural activity, distinct modes of functional and effective connectivity were observed for moral sensitivity for care and justice issues that were modulated by individual variation in moral ability. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These results support a neurobiological differentiation between care and justice ethics and suggest that human moral behavior reflects the outcome of integrating opposing rule-based, self-other perspectives, and emotional responses

Sex Differences and Autism: Brain Function during Verbal Fluency and Mental Rotation

Autism spectrum conditions (ASC) affect more males than females. This suggests that the neurobiology of autism: 1) may overlap with mechanisms underlying typical sex-differentiation or 2) alternately reflect sex-specificity in how autism is expressed in males and females. Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to test these alternate hypotheses. Fifteen men and fourteen women with Asperger syndrome (AS), and sixteen typically developing men and sixteen typically developing women underwent fMRI during performance of mental rotation and verbal fluency tasks. All groups performed the tasks equally well. On the verbal fluency task, despite equivalent task-performance, both males and females with AS showed enhanced activation of left occipitoparietal and inferior prefrontal activity compared to controls. During mental rotation, there was a significant diagnosis-by-sex interaction across occipital, temporal, parietal, middle frontal regions, with greater activation in AS males and typical females compared to AS females and typical males. These findings suggest a complex relationship between autism and sex that is differentially expressed in verbal and visuospatial domains

Die Prävalenz körperlicher Erkrankungen, Gesundheitsverhalten und die Nutzung des Gesundheitssystems bei alleinstehenden wohnungslosen Männern: Eine Querschnittsuntersuchung (Prevalence of physical diseases, health behaviour and health care utilization in single homeless men: a cross-sectional study)

Summary: Prevalence of physical diseases, health behavior and health care utilization in single homeless men: a cross-sectional study Objective: The aim of this cross-sectional study was to establish the prevalence of physical diseases, the subjective evaluation of their own health and health care utilization in the actually homeless and a comparison group of formerly homeless.Methods: A representative sample of 82 homeless and 37 formerly homeless was studied. Instruments were a physical examination and a standardized interview. The latter included parts of the assessment of the German cardiovascular disease prevention study and the questionnaire Funktionseinschränkungen (functional impairments) by Potthoff (1982).Results: Disease prevalence was high. The main diagnoses fell within the categories of defective dental status (over 80%), ophthalmologic diseases (over 60%) and diseases of the liver and musculoskeletal system (over 40% each). Morbidity in the formerly homeless was even higher. In both groups the subjective evalution of their own health was unrealistically positive. Risk factors for cardiovascular diseases were high. Health care utilization was mainly acute.Conclusions: The medical care of the homeless in standard medical services is insufficient and could be improved by especially tailored projects which should include education about risk factors. Formerly homeless continue to show high disease prevalence.Homeless - Cross-sectional study - Prevalence - Formerly homeless - Service utilisation - Subjective healt

Cooperation with another player in a financially rewarded guessing game activates regions implicated in theory of mind

Functional imaging studies have identified a network of brain regions associated with theory of mind (ToM); the attribution of mental states to other people. Similar regions have also been observed in studies where people play games that involve either competing or co-operating with another person. Such games are thought to place implicit demands on ToM processes. Co-operation with others has also been shown to elicit brain responses in areas associated with the processing of reward, suggesting that co-operation is an intrinsically rewarding process. In this study, we used a factorial design to assess the interaction between co-operation and the availability of financial rewards in a guessing game. Twelve subjects were scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they performed a guessing game with and without co-operation, and under both these conditions with and without financial reward. The main effect of co-operation was associated with neural responses in theory of mind regions, while the main effect of financial reward was associated with neural responses in reward regions. Critically the response to reward in medial orbitofrontal cortex was significantly enhanced when subjects were co-operating. This suggests that rewards achieved through co-operation are more valuable than rewards achieved alone