Trial reportPloS one2015
Transcranial direct current stimulation of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex shifts preference of moral judgments.
Trial report in PloS one, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- tDCS effect on prosocial behavior: a meta-analytic review.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2022Pooled it
- Resting-State Neural Signatures of Moral Injury: Associations With Rumination.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2026Article
- Travelling beyond time: shared brain system for self-projection in the temporal, political and moral domains.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
- The neural structures of theory of mind are valence-sensitive: evidence from three tDCS studies.Journal of neural transmission (Vienna, Austria : 1996) · 2024Article
- Transcranial electric stimulation as a neural interface to gain insight on human brain functions: current knowledge and future perspective.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2022Review
- Infection threat shapes our social instincts.Behavioral ecology and sociobiology · 2021Review
- Enhancing spatial reasoning by anodal transcranial direct current stimulation over the right posterior parietal cortex.Experimental brain research · 2020Article
- Moral Judgment: An Overlooked Deficient Domain in Multiple Sclerosis?Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2018Review
- tDCS Over DLPFC Leads to Less Utilitarian Response in Moral-Personal Judgment.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2018Article
- Moral Enhancement Using Non-invasive Brain Stimulation.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2017Review
- Cathodal Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on the Right Temporo-Parietal Junction Modulates the Use of Mitigating Circumstances during Moral Judgments.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Attitude to morality, reflecting cultural norms and values, is considered unique to human social behavior. Resulting moral behavior in a social environment is controlled by a widespread neural network including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), which plays an important role in decision making. In the present study we investigate the influence of neurophysiological modulation of DLPFC reactivity by means of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on moral reasoning. For that purpose we administered anodal, cathodal, and sham stimulation of the left DLPFC while subjects judged the appropriateness of hard moral personal dilemmas. In contrast to sham and cathodal stimulation, anodal stimulation induced a shift in judgment of personal moral dilemmas towards more non-utilitarian actions. Our results demonstrate that alterations of left DLPFC activity can change moral judgments and, in consequence, provide a causal link between left DLPFC activity and moral reasoning. Most important, the observed shift towards non-utilitarian actions suggests that moral decision making is not a permanent individual trait but can be manipulated; consequently individuals with boundless, uncontrollable, and maladaptive moral behavior, such as found in psychopathy, might benefit from neuromodulation-based approaches.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.