ArticleeLife2021
Neural basis of corruption in power-holders.
Article in eLife, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Neurocomputational Mechanisms Linking Future Interaction Prospects to Reactive and Proactive Costly Punishment.Neuroscience bulletin · 2026Article
- Wired for Corruption: Inter-Brain Synchrony Encodes Bribery-Related Value Information and Predicts Bribery Agreement.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2026Article
- Social learning dynamically shapes moral decision-making by biasing subjective valuation.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Why people engage in corrupt collaboration: an observation at the multi-brain level.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2023Article
- The crucial role of ethical hospital administration in neurosurgery education.Frontiers in health services · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Corruption often involves bribery, when a briber suborns a power-holder to gain advantages usually at a cost of moral transgression. Despite its wide presence in human societies, the neurocomputational basis of bribery remains elusive. Here, using model-based fMRI, we investigated the neural substrates of how a power-holder decides to accept or reject a bribe. Power-holders considered two types of moral cost brought by taking bribes: the cost of conniving with a fraudulent briber, encoded in the anterior insula, and the harm brought to a third party, represented in the right temporoparietal junction. These moral costs were integrated into a value signal in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex was selectively engaged to guide anti-corrupt behaviors when a third party would be harmed. Multivariate and connectivity analyses further explored how these neural processes depend on individual differences. These findings advance our understanding of the neurocomputational mechanisms underlying corrupt behaviors.
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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.