Brain lesions, criminal behavior linked to moral decision-making network
How much people earn is associated with how they experience happiness
When brain lesions occur within the brain network responsible for morality and value-based decision-making, they can predispose a person toward criminal behavior, according to new research by Ryan Darby, MD, assistant professor of Neurology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC).
The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first systemic mapping of brain lesions associated with criminal behavior, a medical phenomena referred to as acquired sociopathy.
Darby did the research during a fellowship at Harvard Medical School. Famous cases of acquired sociopathy include Phineas Gage, a railroad worker who in 1848 exhibited anti-social behavior after surviving an explosive blast that sent an iron rod through his brain, and Charles Whitman, the “Texas Tower Sniper,” who had a brain tumor and murdered 16 people in 1966.
Darby and co-authors reviewed more recent cases of brain lesions associated with criminal behavior, examining MRI and CT scans of those individuals. One group of 17 cases had a definitive correlation between criminal behavior and a
People who earn more money tend to experience more positive emotions focused on themselves, while people who earn less take greater pleasure in their relationships and ability to connect with others, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.
“Higher income has many benefits, including improved health and life satisfaction, but is it associated with greater happiness?” asked lead author Paul Piff, PhD, of the University of California, Irvine. “After all, most people think of money as some kind of unmitigated good. But some recent research suggests that this may not actually be the case. In many ways, money does not necessarily buy you happiness.”
The research was published in the journal Emotion.
The researchers used a survey of a nationally representative sample of 1,519 people. Participants were asked about their household income and answered a series of questions designed to measure their tendency to experience seven distinct emotions that are considered to make up the core of happiness: amusement, awe, compassion, contentment, enthusiasm, love and pride. For example, to measure compassion, brain lesion. A second group of 23 cases had an implied correlation when researchers didn’t know whether the brain lesion occurred before or after the criminal behavior. In both groups, the lesions were at participants rated their agreement with various statements, including, “Nurturing others gives me a warm feeling inside.”
Participants at the higher end of the socioeconomic spectrum reported a greater tendency to experience emotions that focused on themselves, specifically, different areas of the brain.
The researchers used neuroimaging analyses -- large datasets compiled from healthy volunteers organized into a connectome, similar to a map of contentment and pride (as well as amusement). Individuals at the lower end of the income scale were more likely to experience emotions that focus on other people, namely compassion and love. Poorer individuals also reported experiencing more awe and beauty in the world around brain activity. While the lesions were in different brain areas, they were all connected to the same brain network.
“We looked at networks involved in morality as well as them. There was no apparent difference for enthusiasm, according to the researchers.
“These findings indicate that wealth is not unequivocally associated with happiness,” said Piff. “What seems to be the case is that your wealth predisposes you to different kinds of happiness. different psychological processes that researchers have thought might be involved -- empathy, cognitive control and other processes that are important for decision making,” Darby said. “We saw that it was really morality and value-based decision making -- reward and punishment decision making -- that the lesions were strongly connected to.”
Lesions in patients with criminal behavior were more strongly connected to this moral decisionmaking network than lesions in patients without criminal behavior, suggesting that connectivity to this network was specific to criminal behavior.
“This is a relatively new approach that we have developed,” Darby said, describing a series of recent studies with senior author Michael Fox, MD, PhD, assistant professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. “We have previously used it to understand other disorders where it wasn’t really clear why brain lesions in different locations caused hallucinations or delusions. In those diseases, it was also found that it was a common brain network connected to the same areas. We were the first to apply this to looking at criminal behavior.” While wealthier individuals may find greater positivity in their accomplishments, status and individual achievements, less wealthy individuals seem to find more positivity and happiness in their relationships, their ability to care for and connect with others.”
Piff believes these differences may stem from higherincome individuals’ desire for independence and self-sufficiency, while the other-oriented emotions help lower-income individuals to form more interdependent bonds with others to help cope with their more threatening environments.
Much psychological research over the last few decades has focused on the negative effects of poverty, according to Piff. “Poverty heightens people’s risks for a slew of negative life outcomes, including worsened health,” he said. “Wealth doesn’t guarantee you happiness, but it may predispose you to experiencing different forms of it -- for example, whether you delight in yourself versus in your friends and relationships. These findings suggest that lowerincome individuals have devised ways to cope, to find meaning, joy and happiness in their lives despite their relatively less favorable circumstances.”