ArticlePLoS biology2020
The anterior cingulate cortex is necessary for forming prosocial preferences from vicarious reinforcement in monkeys.
Article in PLoS biology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 42 papers.
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Who cites it
42 citing papers in PubMed, 75 citations in OpenAlex.
- Neural basis of social hierarchy across species.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2026Review
- Computational origins of cortical brain circuits for social cognition.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2026Review
- Neural correlates of social cognition in stroke and traumatic brain injury: A systematic review.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Review
- Primate neuroethology: a new synthesis.Trends in cognitive sciences · 2026Review
- The neural basis of prosocial effort-based decision making in older adults at risk for Alzheimer's disease.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- The Anterior Cingulate Cortex and Prosocial Behavior toward Others in Negative State.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Review
- Article
- Circuit-Based Approaches to Understanding the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC).The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Review
- Ventromedial prefrontal cortex lesions disrupt learning to reward others.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2025Article
- Sex differences in structural and receptor mRNA expression in the ventral anterior cingulate cortex and a potential role of perineuronal nets in monogamous pair bond establishment (Peromyscus californicus).Biology of sex differences · 2025Article
- Prefrontal-Amygdala Pathways for Object and Social Value Representation.Journal of cognitive neuroscience · 2024Article
- Neural populations in macaque anterior cingulate cortex encode social image identities.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Article
- Normative Processing Needs Multiple Levels of Explanation: From Algorithm to Implementation.Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science · 2024Article
- Dissociation of vicarious and experienced rewards by coupling frequency within the same neural pathway.Neuron · 2023Article
- Social threat, fronto-cingulate-limbic morphometry, and symptom course in depressed adolescents: a longitudinal investigation.Psychological medicine · 2023Article
- Neural responses underlying extraordinary altruists' generosity for socially distant others.PNAS nexus · 2023Article
- The Anterior Cingulate Cortex Promotes Long-Term Auditory Cortical Responses through an Indirect Pathway via the Rhinal Cortex in Mice.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2023Article
- The association between ballroom dance training and empathic concern: Behavioral and brain evidence.Human brain mapping · 2023Article
- Toward reframing brain-social dynamics: current assumptions and future challenges.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Review
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5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
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Abstract
A key feature of most social relationships is that we like seeing good things happen to others. Research has implicated the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) in attaching value to social outcomes. For example, single neurons in macaque ACC selectively code reward delivery to the self, a partner, both monkeys, or neither monkey. Here, we assessed whether the ACC's contribution to social cognition is causal by testing rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) on a vicarious reinforcement task before and after they sustained ACC lesions. Prior to surgery, actors learned that 3 different visual cues mapped onto 3 distinct reward outcomes: to self ("Self"), to the other monkey ("Other"), or to neither monkey ("Neither"). On each trial, actors saw a cue that predicted one of the 3 juice offers and could accept the offer by making a saccade to a peripheral target or reject the offer by breaking fixation. Preoperatively, all 6 actors displayed prosocial preferences, indicated by their greater tendency to give reward to Other relative to Neither. Half then received selective, bilateral, excitotoxic lesions of the ACC, and the other half served as unoperated controls. After surgery, all monkeys retained the social preferences they had demonstrated with the preoperatively learned cues, but this preference was reduced in the monkeys with ACC lesions. Critically, none of the monkeys in the ACC lesion group acquired social preferences with a new set of cues introduced after surgery. These data indicate that the primate ACC is necessary for acquisition of prosocial preferences from vicarious reinforcement.
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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.