Can morality be changed magnetically?

    This article, written by Elizabeth Landau of CNN.com (March, 2010) discusses a recent rTMS study conducted by Liane Young at MIT in which researchers were able to manipulate participants' moral judgment using rTMS. Past studies have shown that people with high activity in their right temporoparietal junctions tend to judge others' morality based on their intentions, rather than the outcome of the situation. By temporarily interrupting brain activity in this region using rTMS, researchers found that people were significantly more likely to base moral judgments on outcome, rather than intention. This is an interesting study and has a lot of implications for the ways in which we make moral decisions. Perhaps sociopaths and psychopaths have abnormal right temporoparietal junctions.

http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2010/03/30/can-morality-be-changed-magnetically/?iref=allsearch

Born with half a brain, woman living full life

   This story, published on CNN.com by Kelly Marshall and Eric Marrapodi (October, 2009) is about Michelle Mack, a woman who was born with only half of her brain (the right side). Despite this severe physical abnormality, what is amazing is that Mack speaks completely normally and was able to graduate from high school and hold a job. Despite the fact that Mack had a rough childhood and felt frustrated frequently, it was not until age 27 that doctors realized Mack only had half of a brain. According to doctors, the right side of Mack's brain was able to rewire itself to make up for the lack of a left hemisphere so that Mack could function more normally. Despite Mack's almost normal language abilities, however, she does have some issues with visual processing and controlling her emotions. This case study is interesting because it demonstrates the plasticity of the brain. When part of the brain, or even an entire half, is lesioned, other structures sometimes take over to compensate for functions that are normally carried out by the lesioned brain regions.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/10/12/woman.brain/index.html?iref=allsearch

Brain Function: The Strange Lives of Women With No Fear

       In his Huffington Post article (December, 2010), Jeff Wise describes a case study of a woman, called SM, who has no amygdala, and thus no fear. SM has a genetic disorder called Urbach-Wiethe disease, in which the amygdalae become completely destroyed. A case study of SM was published in Current Biology in which the authors described SM's lack of response to stimuli that normal individuals would find frightening (e.g. haunted houses, snakes, spiders, horror films). Although most of us do not particularly enjoy being afraid, fear is an important response that helps protect us from potential danger. As SM has experienced first hand, a lack of fear can cause one to enter dangerous and potentially life-threatening situations such as approaching violent and armed drug addicts.

    It is important to note that fear is not the only behavior in which the amygdala plays a role. SM has also experienced a lack of social restraint and hypersexuality. This study makes it clear that parts of the brain are not specifically correlated with only one type of behavior; instead, a lesion to a particular brain region can cause disruptions to entire brain circuits that can translate into several different types of behavioral changes. This is why neuroscience is so tricky.

Want to learn more about the genetics behind amygdala structure, and thus fear? Check out this video:

Does bilateral damage to the human amygdala produce autistic symptoms?

    Past studies have shown that bilateral damage to the amygdala produces autistic symptoms in previously-normal individuals. These symptoms include impaired recognition of emotion in others, lack of theory of mind, and the inability to retain eye contact with others. The purpose of the current study was to actually quantify these autistic symptoms in amygdala-damaged patients to see if the patients would meet criteria for autism. Several diagnostic scales were used that are typical in the process of diagnosing children suspected to have autism. In the current study, neither of the two amygdala patients met criteria for autism, which shows that amygdala damage in itself is not enough to produce the symptoms that would make someone meet criteria for an autism spectrum disorder. Instead, it is possible that those with autism may have abnormal connectivity in their brains between the amygdala and other brain structures. This finding is important because it highlights the fact that one brain structure is rarely implicated in a particular disease or disorder. Instead, it is often the case that entire networks are at play.

Lynn K. Paul & Christina Corsello & Daniel Tranel & Ralph Adolphs (2010). Does bilateral damage to the human amygdala produce autistic symptoms? Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders, 2, 165-173.

TMS in treating the symptoms of autism

     Dr. Casanova, a researcher at the University of Kentucky, believes that TMS could be useful in helping alleviate the sensory overload and seizures often associated with autism. Minicolumns are groups of cells within the neocortex of the brain and have been found to be smaller and more numerous in people with autism. Dr. Casanova believes that by increasing the insulation of these minicolumns, both sensory overload and the incidence of seizures will be reduced in those with autism. It is possible that this increased insulation could be achieved with TMS, as the result of flipping the magnetic field of the cortex. Although clinical trials have not yet started to test this hypothesis, the use of TMS to treat some of the sensory symptoms of autism seems very promising.

The video below was created to help people understand the types of sensory overload experienced by those with autism:

Recognition of facial emotion in nine individuals with bilateral amygdala damage

     In this study of nine patients with bilateral amygdala damage, researchers found that lesions to the amygdala significantly impair patients' recognition of fearful faces compared to control and other brain-damaged participants. This study supports the notion that the amydala plays a role in detection of fear and threat on the faces of other people. An interesting aspect of this study was that even though on the whole, patients with bilateral amygdala damage were less likely to recognize the emotion of fear, there were a couple patients that had no trouble doing so, and these particular patients did not differ from the others in terms of lesion size, age, or IQ. According to the researchers, "One plausible explanation could be that (a) the amygdala is activated when processing facial expressions of fear, but that (b) it may not be essential to give normal performance on recognition tasks, because the subject may adopt alternate strategies that allow retrieval of knowledge about the emotion using anatomical routes other than the amygdala" (p.1116). This comment highlights the complicated nature of neuroscience. Although a particular region of the brain may be implicated in certain behavioral responses, it doesn't mean that it is necessary for those responses to occur, at least not in every person.

R. Adolphsa, D. Tranela, S. Hamannb, A.W. Youngc, A.J. Calderd, E.A. Phelpse,
A. Andersone, G.P. Leef, A.R. Damasioa (1999). Recognition of facial emotion in nine individuals with bilateral amygdala damage. Neuropsychologia 37, 1111-1117.

The Regulatory Function of Self-Conscious Emotion: Insights From Patients With Orbitofrontal Damage

    This study showed that patients who have orbitofrontal damage in their brains have decreased self-conscious emotions, which are defined as sentiments such as embarrassment, shame, guilt, and pride. These emotions have been thought to regulate social behavior, which was supported by the findings of the current study. A primary strength of this study was the researchers' use of both self-report measures and emotional facial expressions coded by experimenters to test their hypotheses. The researchers contend that one of the reasons self-conscious emotions and behavioral regulation are correlated is because if one is unable to make sense of others' self-conscious emotions, one cannot benefit from social feedback in embarrassing situations and thus might fail to see the situation as embarrassing.

     This lesion study is interesting because regulation of social behavior is a necessity in the formation of relationships with other people. If self-conscious emotions play a role in regulating social behavior, it could be useful for clinicians to help facilitate these emotions in those who have trouble understanding and interacting with other people.




Beer, J.S., Heerey, E.A., Keltner, D., Scabini, D., Knight, R.T. (2003).  Self-Conscious Emotion: Insights From Patients With Orbitofrontal Damage. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85(4), 594-604.

Study shows why it is so scary to lose money

This study looked at two women with brain lesions resulting from Urbach-Wiethe disease, which damages the amygdala. Compared to controls, the two women with amygdala damage were much more likely to make large gambles with their own money. Researchers contend that the amygdala, which is part of the brain implicated in fear response (see figure), also plays a role in making us cautious when it comes to money. This small-scale study is important because it paves the way for future research that looks at differential gambling behaviors in people based on genetic and environmental factors. Future research may provide insight into the mechanisms involved in the brains of chronic gamblers and other such excessive risk-takers.

John O'Callaghan, www.reuters.com, 8 February, 2010

From Bipolar Darkness, the Empathy to Be a Doctor

      This New York Times article by Elyssa Ely, M.D. (March, 2009) is about scientist Alice Flaherty who, after delivering stillborn twins in 1998 became severely depressed and was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Instead of becoming consumed in her illness, she uses it to help her patients. Her miracle drug is empathy. The wife of a former patient said this of Dr. Flaherty: “Doctors tend to see patients with an overtone of category. Alice never did. She understood Bill’s depression and his movement problems. But she really understood his needs, appetites, moods, guilts, sadnesses and potential pleasures.”
     It is this sort of empathy that is one of Dr. Flaherty's primary research interests; she studies the underlying neural mechanisms associated with empathy. Specifically, she studies the mirror neuron system in the insula, cingulate and inferior frontal parts of the brain, which have been implicated in feelings of empathy (i.e. they become activated when someone witnesses someone else experiencing emotion).
      This article is fascinating because it highlights the ways in which someone's personal struggles can be the catalyst behind really interesting scientific discoveries. Research sometimes becomes "MEsearch," and that is okay. Dr. Flaherty has the capacity to empathize with others in part due to her personal experiences, which provides evidence that someone's ability to empathize is most likely due to both genetic and environmental factors.The study of empathy is important because it is a feeling that helps us understand others and form meaningful relationships. By elucidating the neural mechanisms involved, we may be able to help people who struggle socially.

Interested in learning more about mirror neurons? Check out this video:
http://www.ted.com/talks/vs_ramachandran_the_neurons_that_shaped_civilization.html

Impairment of prosocial sentiments is associated with frontopolar and septal damage in frontotemporal dementia

    This brain lesion study sought to provide evidence that patients with damage to their frontopolar cortex and septal areas show less prosocial behavior than control participants. Prosocial behavior is defined as behavior that lets us care about others and that causes us to dislike making mistakes (e.g. guit, pity, and embarrassment). Researchers used a moral sentiment task, which consisted of 98 scenarios, each accompanied by a choice of 4 adjectives that the participants had to choose to indicate how the scenario would make them feel (see figure). Behavioral data was recorded (i.e. the participants’ choices to the questions in each of the 98 scenarios), and imaging was acquired with a PET scanner. Behavioral results indicated that participants with lesions to their frontopolar cortex and septal areas showed less prosocial behavior and other critical sentiments than controls, and they showed frontotemporal and subcortical hypometabolism, which was predicted.
    In my opinion, this study’s primary strength was that they ruled out the possibility for an alternative hypothesis, that the relationship between FPC-septal hypometabolism and reduced prosocial sentiments in lesion patients was simply due to overall emotional blunting. Even after controlling for other types of emotions, the relationship between FPC-septal hypometabolism and reduced prosocial sentiments remained robust. I think it is extremely important to study prosocial sentiment because of the role it plays in our everyday functioning and our ability to interact with a multitude of other individuals. Those who lack prosocial behavior (i.e. sociopaths, those with developmental delays like autism, etc.) may lack it because of structural differences in the FPC and septal areas of their brains.


 Moll, J., Zahn, R., de Oliveira-Souza, R., Bramati, I., Krueger, F., Tura, B., Cavanagh, A., Grafman, J. Impairment of prosocial sentiments is associated with frontopolar and septal damage in frontotemporal dementia. Neuroimage 54 (2011), 1735-1742.